


For You, In Silence

by elleinadine



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman, call me by your name - Fandom
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Conditions, Perlmans being awesome parents, Protective Oliver, except I damage them more first, major character illness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-05-18 10:52:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 46,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14851365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elleinadine/pseuds/elleinadine
Summary: Oliver returns to Crema one year after the summer of ’83, desperate to reconcile with Elio and salvage what they once so easily found. But before the walls have a chance to come down between them, nature once again uses its cunning ways and steps in.Planning a return trip to Italy all those weeks ago had been the easiest decision of his life. There hadn’t been a singular moment of clarity, or a series of events that lead to some long-awaited epiphany – just a dawning awareness that if he didn’t get the chance to so much as lay eyes on Elio again he’d never want to breathe in the start another day. It had all seemed so simple, so finite. And yet standing here now before him in a maelstrom of dismay, Oliver had never felt more uncertain. In the short time they’d been reunited he couldn’t help but feel that his presence just seemed to bring Elio more harm and confusion than anything else.Of course, the unwelcome sight of Elio forced into a medicated slumber did nothing to alleviate that concern.





	1. Oliver

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first foray into writing for CMBYN, but not into fanfic in general (I won't list my previous fandoms lest I date myself...*face palm*). I haven't shared anything in years but I had this story somewhere inside of me and it demanded to be written!
> 
> Andre Aciman, thank you for letting me play with your beautifully compelling characters. I promise not to break anything that I can't fix ;)
> 
> This story is _mostly_ complete, so I will try to post chapters as routinely as possible.

 

The vibrant green of the cornfields passed by the car window in a dizzying blur. Oliver rolled it down further and let his arm dangle out into the warm, achingly familiar breeze.  He glanced to the driver’s side just in time to catch Anchise shoot him a knowing, crooked grin. It did nothing to quell the fluttering of wings in his stomach. Oliver tried to school his features into something more neutral, less telling, but felt himself grimace instead. He turned his gaze silently back to the road.

 

The drive so far had been surreal, the sense of déjà vu surprisingly intense even after he had tried to mentally prepare on the plane. However, the most difficult part of the journey so far had been waiting for his ride at the bus station in Cremona. The dusty, quiet platform had been nothing and everything like the train station he’d departed from in Clusone nearly one year ago.

 

He could remember the sound of the train door slamming shut like it was yesterday, the deafening finality of it. The breath-stealing pain in his chest. The abject devastation on Elio’s pale, beautiful face. The certainty with every passing second and mile that he was making the biggest mistake of his life.

 

In the months that followed, that feeling never truly went away. If anything, it grew into something deeper, something darker, that took root in his very soul and fed on weak moments of regret and sleepless nights. The phone call to Elio at Hanukkah had felt like drowning and breaking the surface at the same time, a moment of clarity after months in the dark.

 

Oliver wasn’t the only one; Elio remembered everything, too.

 

“ _Siamo quasi a casa_.” Anchise said, _we’re almost home_.

 

_Home_ , Oliver thought with gulp, and the knots in his stomach seemed to relax and constrict all at once. As it always did, the effortless way these people accepted him into their world, into their _family_ , nearly knocked him off his feet. Even the curmudgeonly Anchise, who used to glance at him from the corner of his eye as Oliver laid poolside teasing Elio. Even after all this time, after what he’d left behind in his wake when he left.

 

Startled out of yet another daydream, Oliver felt the car slow and looked up. His stomach dropped. The gravel crunched deafeningly under the tires. Shadows flickered like candlelight as they passed under the olive trees lining the driveway. Brick and mortar holding together a summer and a lifetime of memories came into view.

 

Oliver’s gaze flew up to the bedroom windows, his heart in his throat. Though the green shutters all lay open, there was no mop of dark curly hair looking down on him. Taking a deep breath, he got out of the car.

 

No sooner had he shut the door than the Professor was hurtling towards him with his warm, open smile. “Oliver!”

 

Oliver grinned. “Professor Perlman,” he returned, and was soon enveloped in the small arms that always seemed to have room for him.

 

Annella appeared from somewhere behind him. “Oh, Oliver, please. He’s Samuel. You know this.” She tugged him from her husband and pulled him down into her own embrace. Her hair smelled like her MS cigarettes and fresh apricots. “You won’t get away with another six weeks of calling me ‘Mrs. P’, either.”

 

“Understood,” Oliver said good-naturedly.

 

There’s a weighty pause, and then Samuel took pity on him, clapping his shoulder. “Come – let’s head inside and get you settled.” They walk into the house. “I trust your flight was…?”

 

“Pleasant. Long, but pleasant.” Oliver supplied, taking his bags from Anchise as they entered the foyer. “Just glad to finally be here. To be back.” It felt so insufficient, he immediately wished he’d never said anything at all.

 

“As are we,” Samuel said gently, “as are we. More than you can know.”

 

Oliver felt himself blush. They passed by the stairwell and he turned to look, casting a furtive glance up the landing, but there was no one there. The only sound he could hear from the second floor was the familiar knocking of the balcony doors against the wall from the wind.

 

They entered the library and Oliver let his bag slip from his shoulder to rest on the tile. It seemed that their welcome circuit was following much the same path it had that very first day, and it did little to ease the unnerving feeling of a waking dream. He kept looking to the doorway, half expecting Elio to appear in a red polo shirt with a shy expression and a curt hand extended to greet him.

 

“…but certainly, you know your way around, so please don’t feel the need to stand on ceremony.”

 

Oliver realized with rising embarrassment that the Perlmans had been filling in for his silence for some time and he hadn’t even heard them. He hoped his preoccupation could be passed off as jet lag.

 

Samuel just smiled slowly, that same shrewd look flickering in his eyes. “He’s not here.”

 

“What?” Oliver asked, assuming he had heard incorrectly.

 

“Elio. He’s not here.” Samuel leaned against his desk, speaking softly. “Well, not until tomorrow at least.” His gaze turned briefly to his wife’s, a small but significant look passing between them. Annella silently excused herself from the room.

 

Oliver swallowed. “Oh,” he said, and did nothing to try and hide the disappointment from his voice.

 

“Yes, he’ll be picked up in the morning. From the airport – quite the weary traveller, not unlike yourself, I’d imagine.” Samuel explained with a small chuckle. “He was in California for a few days with one of his cousins. They were touring schools for the fall.”

 

With a slow nod, Oliver allowed himself to absorb this information. When he’d made the arrangements with the Professor to fly to Italy, he’d asked for very few details on what to expect upon his arrival. He hadn’t felt entitled. Now, standing adrift in their home, he felt foolish for anticipating some kind of long-awaited homecoming. He didn’t ask all the questions that instantly rose to the surface.

 

Apparently, he didn’t have to. “Elio doesn’t know that you’re here, Oliver. We didn’t tell him you were coming.” Samuel’s voice was entirely composed as he spoke, but a trace of unease in his otherwise relaxed expression gave him away. “It wasn’t a pre-meditated decision. Annella and I just decided that…well, whatever path you’re on may not have been the one you set out for, but it brought you back to our doorstep, and for that we’re grateful. You know you’re always welcome. But the _reason_ it’s led you here is your business and yours alone.”

 

As always, the ready acceptance of this family left him lightheaded with surprise and relief. “I…thank you,” Oliver stammered, blinking rapidly. “I - my engagement. I know I was vague when we last spoke. About calling it off, I mean. I’m sure you have questions.”

 

Samuel waved his hand in a kind but halting motion. “You owe me no explanations, please.”

 

Oliver was instantly grateful. For starters, he wasn’t truly sure where one would even begin to describe the complexities of his relationship with Casey. Their courtship had been doomed from the start, if they’d both been honest. Their love had stemmed from adolescent friendship and had never really become anything more. Foolishly, they’d let the pressures of society and their traditionalist parents force their trajectory onto the path of marriage, even though they’d both been looking for their own ways to derail it, some subtler than others.

 

On their final tumultuous morning before parting, Oliver remembered finding the key to a seedy motel lying amongst their mail. It had been surprise more than betrayal that had made him confront her – Casey had been more discrete about her indiscretions up until that point.

 

“Are you kidding me with this?” He’d asked, holding the item out to her with a wry grin.

 

Casey had looked over her reading glasses at him, perched casually on the sofa. Her expression was calm as she put her textbook face down in her lap and gave him her full attention. She seemed to see him, really _see_ him, for the first time in weeks. “I don’t know,” she began. “Are you kidding me with _this_?” She gestured around the apartment, at their blended lives of shared towels and the book collections they’d combined. At the distance between their bodies. At everything.

 

In the end, the infidelity they could no longer ignore had been a blessing. Casey had freed him, in that painfully candid way of hers, from continuing to live the lie he’d been hopelessly preserving: that his heart would ever belong to her, or anyone else, ever again. Somehow, it had always been Elio’s.

 

The Professor stirred him from his reverie. “And that, too, is for you to discuss with Elio, if you so choose.” He crossed his arms and looked up at Oliver with what felt like the first genuine compassion that had been directed his way in months. “Although, I was very sorry to hear. Endings are the saddest part, as they say.” He laid a hand on Oliver’s shoulder, a paternal gesture.

 

Oliver felt anything but deserving. “Yes,” he agreed anyway.

 

“Well,” said Samuel as he let his hand fall away. “I’m sure you must be very tired.”

 

With that, Oliver was all too glad to return to script, playing his part as the bleary-eyed _Americano_. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.”

 

“Mafalda has made up Elio’s room for you. It’s all ready.”

 

“Oh, no, I couldn’t.” It didn’t feel right. Elio didn’t even know he was coming, after all. “He hasn’t been home, I’m sure he’ll want to sleep in his own bed…”

 

“Nonsense!” Samuel admonished in that lighthearted, boyish way of his, giving him a gentle shove to propel them both back out into the corridor. “Please, no arguing. Go up and get settled. Elio has been staying in the spare bedroom, anyway.”

 

Oliver tried not to let the implication of that statement rattle him. “Okay,” he managed, turning before the stairs. “Thank you.” He said it with all the sincerity he could muster, and let the words hang in the air. He hoped their full significance was clear. _Thank you for letting me pour my heart out to you all those weeks ago. Thank you for encouraging me to come here. Thank you for trusting me when I’ve done nothing to deserve it. Thank you…_

Samuel just smiled. “ _Prego_.”

 

At the top of the stairs, Oliver stood on suddenly wooden legs and considered the two closed doors before him. The warm breeze from the balcony tickled the open collar of his shirt against his skin.

 

Absently, Oliver dropped his bag at the door of Elio’s old room and walked, hand trailing the wall, fingertips reading the braille of memories held silently within. He continued through the bathroom and into the small adjoining room. Sure enough, evidence of Elio was everywhere – in the dog-eared copy of _Lucien Leuwen_ lying on the bed, in the sheets of composition paper strewn on the small desk, in the smell of his pillowcase when Oliver pressed it firmly to his face. Had Elio taken refuge here because the memories from his old bedroom were too tender or too raw to bear facing day after day? Or was it a deeper yearning to preserve the space exactly as they had left it, to freeze it in time so that it would hold the ghosts of their summer selves within it forever?

 

Feeling drunk, Oliver finally pulled himself away and continued through the connecting door. All at once the fatigue he’d been holding at bay descended over him like a dark, heavy blanket and he let it, crashing down onto one of the single beds with a groan.

 

_Soon_ , he said to himself, and didn’t let the thought continue beyond that single declaration.

 

He slept, and this time there was no one to wake him for dinner.

 

 *

 

Waking up the next morning to warm light streaming through the windows and familiar yellow sheets against his skin, Oliver assumed he was still dreaming. But in this dream Elio’s lithe body wasn’t lying tucked against him, so he had no desire to stay sleeping.

 

When clarity returned, Oliver nearly leapt from the bed. Elio would be coming home today. When exactly, he didn’t know, but from the foggy memory of his conversation with Samuel he plucked the word ‘morning’ with crystal clarity. In all of five minutes he had freshened up, dressed, and stumbled down the stairs.

 

Annella and Samuel were waiting for him at the table outside just as coolly as if it were twelve months ago. _How had he slept?_ Fine. _Did eggs sound good for breakfast?_ That would be perfect. _And be sure to help himself to some juice_. Don’t mind if I do.

 

This entire exchange happened, mind you, while Oliver circled the table with fidgeting hands and a wavering smile he couldn’t wipe off his face. The Perlmans, bless them, pretended not to notice his odd behavior. Nor did anyone point out that the table was set for four rather than three.

 

When the sound of a car engine approached from the courtyard, Oliver was glad he hadn’t sat down. He stood rooted in place, the seatback before him clenched in a white-knuckled grip.

 

A distant, heavenly voice shouting in French made Oliver’s heart pound. He’d know the sound of Elio’s voice anywhere.

 

Annella opened her mouth to call back and seemed to stop herself, shooting Oliver a furtive look so kind it made his heart ache in response. She pushed her chair back from the table and stood, calling back, “ _J’arrive, mon_ _chéri_.” She had stalled for him.

 

Oliver watched her leave. He felt a sweat break out across his forehead that had nothing to do with the late morning sun.

 

Carefully creasing his newspaper, Samuel placed it slowly on the table and rose. He patted one of Oliver’s tightly fisted hands. “Take your time,” he said softly, and moved out of view to join his family's animated voices.

 

Oliver let himself listen to the warm, familiar cadence of Elio’s muffled words as he spoke with his parents and felt a wave of longing so intense he nearly lost his breath. That was all the affirmation he needed; a second more would have be too long to wait.

 

He followed the voices. Propelled forward, Oliver let himself be drawn in, weaving through the orchard, between peach and apricot trees, tall grass nipping at his bare ankles. He told himself he was approaching slowly as not to startle the boy – it had nothing to do with his own trepidation, or the selfish desire to look on Elio now, just as he was: the Elio that Elio was without him.

 

And look he did. Elio was just as beautiful as always – all dark curls, hooded green eyes, skin paler now at the start of the summer months. He was wearing his _Talking Heads_ t-shirt, which Oliver noted he filled out almost imperceptibly more at the shoulders. _Almost_ imperceptibly, to anyone other than Oliver. He knew that perfect form before him better than he knew his own – had studied it as he lay between the sheets in Bergamo, committing it to memory when he’d been convinced a memory was all he was ever going to have. To see Elio standing right in front of him now felt beyond the realm of possibility.

 

“…pleased to tell you that we have a visitor,” the Professor was saying in a distinctively ebullient pitch.

 

That was going to have to be his cue. Oliver took a deep breath and approached. He thought about all the things he’d dreamt he would say if he ever got this chance again, the speeches he’d prepared, the arduously executed declarations of the heart.  As it turned out, _Hi_ was all he could get past his constrictive throat.

 

It was needless, because Elio’s eyes suddenly fell on him before he’d even had a chance to open his mouth. Elio stopped dead in his tracks, the look on his face was of slack-jawed surprise. Color, spirit, everything seemed to drain from him. “You…” he started, brow furrowing. “You’re here.” It wasn’t a question.

 

“I am,” Oliver replied, redundant and clumsy. All he could think about was how badly he wanted to touch him; his skin was crawling with the need.

 

Elio swallowed and said nothing. A muscle in his sharp jaw twitched as his eyes flitted from Oliver’s face to the ground, the sky, never resting.

 

Feeling his mouth go dry, Oliver stepped closer until they were barely a few feet apart. It felt painfully good to be back in the orbit of this boy, this _being_ that possessed a part of him he would never get nor want to take back. As had become customary whenever he was around Elio, Oliver briefly took in their surroundings. Samuel and Annella had tried to fade innocuously into the background. As Oliver wrestled with the itching desire to reach out and grab Elio, to pull him to his chest, fist a hand in his hair and kiss him until neither of them could breath, he saw them from the corner of his gaze. Their arms were wrapped around one another’s waists as they crafted effortless mild banter and casual puffs of cigarette smoke. A façade of indifference, but Oliver knew better.

 

He settled for extending a hand and placing it firmly on Elio’s shoulder. The entire tapered joint was encased in his palm, and it sent a familiar thrill under Oliver’s skin. “It’s good to see you.” The words were so inadequate it was laughable, and yet it was all he could offer for the moment.

 

Elio also seemed to think it was somehow funny, as his mouth twisted into a grimacing smile. His entire existence suddenly seemed to scream _don’t touch me._

Reluctantly, Oliver pulled his hand away, feeling burned. “I…”

 

The scrape of Elio’s sneakers on the gravel silenced him. “So I guess you’re here on your honeymoon or something?” He asked, an unfamiliar goading lilt in his tone that did not suit him.

 

“No. Nothing like that,” Oliver tried to say lightly, although he felt his smile beginning to wear thin.

 

Elio’s humorless smirk cracked his face further. Suddenly his eyes were scanning the villa as if searching for something unseen, or more likely, someone. “How long have you been here? Was this why I was sent away…?”

 

Annella hurried up from behind. “ _Trésor, non_.” She rebuked him lightly, wrapping an arm around his narrow shoulders.

 

Suddenly Samuel was there too, a mask of untroubled cheer on his face that Oliver could tell was beginning to slip. “Our plans with the Archeology student fell through, unfortunately.” He said, and moved to pat Oliver warmly on the back. “Oliver graciously offered to return to us for a few weeks during his summer break. He already knows the lay of the land and the timing was impeccable.”

 

Elio glanced at his parents where they stood flanking him on either side, as if noticing their presence for the first time. A spark of unconcealed betrayal flashed in his eyes. “I’ll bet,” he muttered.

 

“Elio…” Samuel began.

 

“I’m really tired,” interrupted Elio, a fist coming up to knuckle blearily at his eyes. They came away looking suspiciously red and glassy with far more than exhaustion. Oliver had to restrain himself from reaching out to hold him. It was very nearly agonizing. “It was a very long flight. I’m going to go to my room for a bit. If that’s ok.” He looked at his parents as if daring either of them to say otherwise.

 

“Of course, go.” Annella said swiftly, pressing a kiss to Elio’s cheek before he had a chance to turn away from her.

 

Without so much as another glance, Elio shouldered his backpack and hurried away.

 

Watching him disappear, Oliver felt adrift as he stood rooted in place. He thought of the weeks he’d spent planning, imagining this very moment, and suddenly felt so naïve that he wanted to smash his head against the nearest stone wall. How could he have thought this would ever play out any differently? In what warped, depraved reality would the Elio he’d left bereft and jilted come rushing into his open arms?

 

With a quiet sigh, Annella gently patted Oliver’s shoulder in silent support and returned to the breakfast table. The Professor remained for another moment more, and when Oliver finally dared to look at him he was surprised to find an unexpectedly dismayed expression on the older man’s face. He looked just about as lost as Oliver felt, and a feeling of regret for indirectly inspiring Samuel to take part in this apparent subterfuge was one more weight on his shoulders to bear.

 

Oliver silently willed the Professor to offer a pearl of wisdom, even a cryptic quote from some avant-garde piece of literature. Unfortunately, all he received was a tight smile as Samuel struggled to disguise the guilt in his eyes. He left Oliver standing in the orchard alone.

 

 


	2. Oliver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! Let's dig back in, shall we? There may be lots of them, but do heed the tags - we're only at the beginning of a fairly dramatic journey. Angst-ahoy!
> 
> The entire first half of this story is written in Oliver's POV and the second half will switch to Elio's.
> 
> Enjoy!!

After Elio retreated to his room, Oliver had quickly given up on any hope of pretending that everything was okay and the Perlmans allowed it. They, too, had looked completely lost in their thoughts, shame-filled gazes partially hidden behind sections of newspaper or mugs of coffee. The silence had been heavy as they each served their penance.

 

There was an undeniable gloom that had settled over the villa, and it sickened Oliver to know that he had brought it there with him. The look in Elio’s eyes when he’d spoken left Oliver chilled despite the stifling Julys sun. Undeniably, Oliver knew he deserved it. After leaving Elio the way he had, then months of no contact only to announce his engagement to someone else. And now to suddenly show up in his home, no warning, no explanation, expecting everything to just fall back into place? Oliver realized he actually should have received far worse – and perhaps it would still come. But to add insult to injury, he’d unwittingly made Samuel and Annella his accomplices – two parents who prided their open and trusting relationship with their son above all else.

 

Oliver borrowed Anchise’s bike and rode aimlessly. He thought about going to the river for a swim, but worried there would be too many familiar faces. Exchanging pleasantries and banal conversation sounded impossible in his current state – not to mention his Italian was more than a little rusty.

 

In the end, he rode out to Elio’s 'spot' on the berm. One year later and he still knew the way as well as he knew his own neighborhood back in New York. There was a pull to this place that was hard to deny; it drew him in with the promise that if he could just lay in that same patch of grass, the one where Elio’s lips had first touched his, then all the answers he sought would come to him. But when he reached the field where they’d left their bikes and shoes, he could go no further. It felt wrong without Elio, like disturbing hallowed ground.

 

Somehow, Oliver made it through lunch drudgery unscathed, but Elio never made an appearance. Oliver had wandered the hall outside their rooms like a resident spirit, until Mafalda shot him an entirely disapproving look when she came up with fresh towels. He’d never heard any sounds of movement from within, anyway.

 

At that point he’d had to beg the Professor for an assignment. “Oliver, you’re under no obligation. You know this isn’t truly like the last time…”

 

“Please.” Oliver replied, looking around the cluttered study – anywhere but at Samuel’s discerning gaze.

 

Together they’d slowly gone about cataloguing the Professor’s fiscal collection of mail from the United States. It was a near-perfectly mindless task that somehow lasted them until the dinner bell rang. By some miracle (or by no coincidence whatsoever) they had no guests joining them, according to the place settings on the table under the trees. Oliver let out a quiet breath of relief as he took his customary seat.

 

Without warning, Samuel’s face brightened almost comically. “ _Ma ciao, figlio mio_!” 

 

Oliver’s head shot up. Elio was walking slowly through the shadows, approaching the table with his head hung low. “ _Ciao_ ,” he said shyly, standing behind the empty chair as if awaiting an invitation.

 

“Sit, mon chéri. Are you rested?” Annella reached out a hand and caressed her son’s face, pushing back hair that was longer in the front than Oliver remembered it. “You must be starving.”

 

Oliver drank in the face across from him like oxygen. Elio was adorably sleep-creased and puffy, so evidently he had, in fact, been napping, but it was the look of someone who had tossed and turned for hours instead of achieving actual slumber. He accepted food and drink that was placed in front of him by doting parents with _Si_ , and _Grazie_ , but ultimately avoided all eye contact.

 

Samuel spoke first. “So,” he rested his chin on clasped hands, undivided attention directed at his son. “How was your trip?”

 

Elio nodded at his plate. “Good. Gian loved California, but that may just be because of the sorority girls.”

 

An unexpectedly loud giggle erupted from Samuel, who was apparently just grateful for the opportunity to dialogue.  “Well, knowing your cousin, that’s not entirely surprising,” he quirked an inquiring eyebrow. “And you?”

 

Another nod. “The USC campus is nice. It’s right in the heart of the city…”

 

“LA?” Oliver blurted without intending to speak.

 

Elio’s fork paused in its journey to his mouth, but his eyes remained on the table.

 

“Elio has been accepted to the Thornton School of Music.” Samuel jumped to explain with an overtly delighted smile. “He graduated at the top of his class and applied to several music composition programs around the country with multiple invitations to choose from. It’s very exciting.”

 

“We’re so proud of you,” Annella beamed. It finally earned her a half-hearted grin.

 

Oliver, for one, was beginning to feel a little nauseated by the entire performance. Their attempts to get back on their surly son’s good graces were borderline overkill to watch. Elio was evidently still playing the part of the same well-mannered, initially shy kid who needed coaxing out of his shell, slow to gain confidence and never really brave enough to shine as brightly as he rightfully should. It was a behavior that his parents were all too keen to indulge, but Oliver knew he would always expect more. “Why USC?” Oliver asked with as much casual interest as he could muster.

 

This time, after Elio paused, he did look up and met Oliver’s gaze, as if he’d needed a second to steel himself first. “Why _not_ USC?”

 

“So that’s your first choice, then?”

 

“Thornton is the oldest continually operating arts institution in Southern California.” The delivery was like a rehearsed and mock-polite speech. Spouting fact-laden commentaries was a habit Elio had likely learned from his father and it surfaced during moments of insecurity - a deflection. “It’s consistently ranked among the top one percent of US music schools and conservatories…”

 

Oliver held up a hand, smirking. “I didn’t ask you to recite the brochure to me.”

 

Elio huffed. “It _is_ my first choice.” He seemed to be vibrating in his chair, but it was just the agitated bouncing of his knee under the table.

 

With a slow nod, Oliver sat back slightly as if to absorb this information with a neutral expression. He knew Elio would see past the sarcasm. Sure enough, when he glanced up the face across from him seemed more exasperated than ever. A thick silence fell over the table, broken only by the chirping crickets and the hum of the summer at dusk around them.

 

“Okay, boys.” Implored Samuel, for the first time looking less than entertained.  “Oliver, tell me about Columbia, hmm? How many courses will you be teaching this fall?”

 

Cutlery clattered loudly against a porcelain plate just as Oliver began to speak. “How does a busy professor like yourself find the time to get away over the summer, Oliver?” Elio asked, mimicking his father’s thoughtfulness. “I mean, you’ve barely had a free moment all year. Certainly not for, say, catching up on your correspondence?”

 

Annella lit a cigarette, likely for something to do with her hands. “Elio,” she began warningly.

 

Oliver braced himself. “I know. I’ve behaved badly. I should have stayed in contact…”

 

“But, then again, a family man has other priorities, I would imagine.” Elio continued, nodding to himself solemnly. His eyes flashed ominously from Oliver’s left hand and then up to his face. “Did you leave your ring back in America, too?”

 

A small part of Oliver was impressed – this was not the Elio he remembered from last summer. That Elio, whom by no means Oliver would have considered timid, would never have had the over-confidence to lead the attack when otherwise unprovoked. There was a deeper maturity to him now, a worldliness that hadn’t been there before. With rising misery, Oliver recognized it as the kind of wisdom one could only gain after a worthy disappointment, a slow-to-heal wound. A heartbreak. He leaned towards him across the table, searching the achingly familiar green eyes. “Do you really want to do this right now?” He asked, voice lowered.

 

Elio stood up abruptly in answer.

 

“Sit back down, darling.” Annella begged, placing a firm hand on one of Elio’s.

 

“No, I’m sorry. I actually forgot,” Elio dragged a hand through his hair, clearly stalling. “I am supposed to meet the others in the piazza. We’re going to the cinema.” He said with an insincere apology. It was a wise choice, actually, as it appealed to his parent’s desire for their son to lead a more active social life. Oliver had to give him credit for creativity.

 

Predictably, he was permitted to leave. Oliver dropped his napkin on the table in defeat. As he sat back in his chair, Annella offered him a sympathetic smile and a cigarette. He had always suspected that the woman was secretly a mind reader; he took one gratefully.

 

Samuel quickly followed suite. “Give him time.”

 

Blowing smoke into the quickly deepening night, Oliver didn’t know how to explain that the Professor had just voiced one of his deepest fears. After all, it was time that had always seemed to be the antagonist in the short story he and Elio lived.

 

 * 

 

Oliver hadn’t believed for a second that Elio had actually gone to see a movie that night. That lie may have worked on his parents, but to Oliver it may as well have been as blatant as a sky-written message. Whether Elio had intended to or not, his words had been clear: _Come find me later._

So he was unsurprised when, during a solitary walk through the gardens, he was drawn towards the house by the enchanting swell of a melody wafting from the open windows of the salon. As he followed it, his heart began to ache from the rising crescendo of the sweetest notes he’d ever heard wrung from an instrument. It may as well have been a Siren’s song leading him to shipwreck on a rocky coast, and Oliver wouldn’t have cared. He drew closer, finally discovering the source.

 

There was Elio, looking so small against the powerful, black beast he was taming music from, so completely vulnerable in comparison to the self-assured individual who had sat across from him at dinner. His eyes were closed, lost in the resonant harmony, as his fingers flew effortlessly over the keys. Oliver approached with his weight cautiously balanced in the balls of his feet, desperate not to disturb the song that was both enchanting and heart-wrenchingly haunting. But all too quickly, in the middle of a refrain the music came to a halt. He heard Elio hum a note or two, watched him retrieve a pencil from behind his ear, and begin scribbling eagerly on the sheet music on the stand.

 

His weight must have shifted, because the floor gave a traitorous squeak of complaint. Elio’s narrow shoulders stiffened and he sucked in a visible breath. “That was - beautiful,” Oliver stammered, stepping further into the room. “Did you compose that?”

 

The shoulders shrugged. “It’s not finished,” he murmured without turning.

 

“What’s it called?”

 

Elio cleared his throat, and the answer came too quickly. “It doesn’t have a name.” He finished writing and began shuffling the pages back together. “It’s…just something I’ve been working on.”

 

Typical – no one could downplay their worth like Elio. “Well, it was lovely, whatever it was. Rich, and intense…” Oliver said, staring at the back of the dark head as his voice trailed off in rising comprehension. “…but sad.”

 

Elio’s back seemed to tense. “I wouldn’t say that.” He said defensively.

 

“What _would_ you say?”

 

He finally turned in his seat. “So you’re not married, then?” A Classic Elio question-answered-with-a-question.

 

Oliver couldn’t stop the half-smile on his face. “Are you going to stick around for longer than five minutes for us to discuss it?”

 

Elio shrugged. “Maybe.”

 

Now Oliver grinned for real. This was a little taste of the old Elio – the one that teased him, cheated when they raced to the river, jumped on his back and clung to him like a koala bear. It was a small step in the right direction, a grain of hope.

 

Before he could think about how he wanted to answer, Elio spoke again. “Was that what you were trying to tell me that day…when you said you didn’t want to regret anything?” Chewing on his lower lip, he turned to look at Oliver, really look at him, for the first time in what felt like an eternity.

 

Oliver knew immediately which day Elio was referring to. He could picture what the boy was wearing, how the sweat had glistened on his skin as he rode towards him on his bike across the square. Most of all: how he’d felt when Elio had uttered the words, so sincerely, _I just wanted to be with you._ “What do you mean?” he asked, settling on the armrest of the nearest emerald lounge chair.

 

“Do you regret cheating on…?” he trailed off hopelessly, casting Oliver an expectant look under a veil of dark lashes.

 

His stomach dropped. “Elio, no. It was never like that. You weren’t just some kind of...” He couldn’t bring himself to say a word so unfitting and offensive as _concubine_ , or anything else of the like. “My relationship with Casey – her name is Casey,” he owed it to both of them – to her and to Elio – to say her name aloud.

                                                                                 

“Casey,” Elio murmured, testing it on his lips.

 

“She and I weren’t together before I left for Italy, and didn’t start up again until after I’d been back in the States for a month or two.” He paused, the rest of the story right at the tip of his tongue. “Long enough for me to convince myself that I was doing the right thing.”

 

Of course, there was more to it than that. He’d told her everything: about his summer at the villa, about the professor’s young son, and the difficulty with which he’d severed that bond. Casey, painfully astute and having long since accepted that part of Oliver even he didn’t fully acknowledge, had quickly filled in the rest of the blanks on her own.

 

He’d convinced himself that by repeating to her all the reasons why he and Elio couldn’t be together that eventually he’d start to believe them.

 

Casey, infuriatingly, had played Devil’s advocate. “Ol, this seems a little ridiculous, don’t you think? I mean, in less than a year’s time everything will be completely different. He’ll be done school and embarking on a new life, you could be – who knows where. You could see each other again.”

 

He remembered shaking his head. “No. It’s too complicated. I can’t keep reappearing in his life and screwing with this head.” _I hate the thought that I messed you up._ “This is the way it has to be. He’ll be better off.” _Without me._

She gave a little snort.

 

He’d glared at her. “What?”

 

“Nothing. I was just imagining how _you’d_ react to someone telling you they think they know what’s best.”

 

In the end, of course, she’d said yes to his proposal; a contract bred from convenience and mutual understanding rather than love. Although when it was all over, if it hadn’t been for Casey’s gentle push to return to Italy and everything he hopelessly pined for, Oliver wasn’t certain where he would _be_ , in every sense of the word. If that wasn’t a kind of love, he didn’t know what was.

 

He brought himself back to the present when Elio looked up at him reproachfully. “The right thing for whom?”

 

Oliver shrugged. “For everyone. For myself, I guess, for her,” he paused, trying to gauge Elio’s reaction. He’d thought he had committed every one of Elio’s expressions to memory, but more and more it was like looking at a vaguely familiar stranger. “For you, mostly.”

 

At that Elio bristled. “For me,” he repeated, chuckling grimly.

 

“Well, of course.” Of all the things that had happened between them, that much had to be obvious. “But Elio, I don’t regret any of it – not a single second of the time we spent together.” He fought to meet the lowered gaze. This, at the very least, he had to get Elio to understand, and he needed to be _certain_ that it was understood. Even if he failed miserably at everything else.

 

Elio turned his head away and shivered, goosebumps rising on his bare arms.

 

Wanting, _needing_ to comfort him, Oliver gave in to the overwhelming temptation to touch, to warm, to protect. He’d barely begun to edge closer before he caught Elio shifting away from him. Oliver sighed.

 

“Look,” Elio began. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of one hand. “I’m really tired…”

 

“No. You can’t just walk away again. Not until you’ve heard me properly: I broke off my engagement.”

 

Elio finally met his gaze with a glower. “ _Do you mind? –_ You asked _me_ that, remember?  I never answered, I never told you what to do!”

 

“And I never had the right to ask that of you in the first place. That was a mistake – one of many, I’ll admit. But Elio, I didn’t have much of a choice.”

 

“Right, and I suppose you had a gun held to your head when you got down on one knee.”

 

It was moments like these that the age difference between them was glaring. What Oliver would give to live in Elio’s world where family accepted you for exactly who you were, life’s finest opportunities laid ever-waiting at your feet, and summer seemed to last forever. “You have no idea just how intolerant of a place the universe can truly be.” Elio’s words echoed back to him from that day in front of the monument. _I know nothing, Oliver._ “I didn’t want that for you. I still don’t. I told you, the thought that I’d mess you up somehow…”

 

Looking away, Elio shook his head. “Too late.” he snorted derisively. “I’m a mess.”

 

Something in Oliver burned at the thought. He pictured Elio, bloody napkin held to his nose, slumped to the floor alone in that dim corner of the house. “No, you’re not.” He scolded.

 

Instead of answering, Elio lunged at him. His lips were scalding as they closed over Oliver’s, pale pianist’s fingers tangled tightly in the front of his shirt. The tip of a tongue traced at the seal of his mouth, demanding entrance. Drowning in sensation, Oliver surrendered. He couldn’t believe he’d managed to live this long without being able to kiss Elio whenever he wanted. He felt like an addict getting a fix after months of sobriety – that sweet elation hit his veins and suddenly nothing else mattered.

 

Moving silently, Oliver slowly rose without breaking the contact. He licked deeper into that heady heat and brought his body closer, intoxicated, bracing his hands on the sleek surface of the grand _Bösendorfer_  piano. With Oliver’s hips now pinning him to his seat, Elio melted, nowhere to go within the cage of the arms that bracketed him on either side. The kiss deepened, and intensified, and -  

 

Elio’s spine made contact with the keys in a shrill cry of flat notes.

 

It may as well have been a bucket of cold water. “Elio. Elio, wait.” Oliver forced himself to pull away, a gentle hand pressed to the lean chest. He couldn’t let his desire create a Band-Aid for this bullet wound.

 

Elio shrank back from him compliantly. “You see?” he asked quietly.

 

“See what?”

 

“You don’t want me, even now.”

 

Oliver’s heart shattered into a million pieces. “You know that’s not true. Why else would I be here?” He demanded, leaning closer.

 

But Elio had already pulled back from him; in his eyes he was a million miles away. “I really _am_ tired.” He stood up slowly, smoothing the front of his faded jeans. When he looked over at Oliver, he offered a wan smile, one that Oliver was glad he could barely make out through the fog that hadn’t yet cleared from his brain; it reminded him too much of the one he’d received their first morning _after_. “Later.”

 

With that, Elio left.

 

Overwhelmed, Oliver listened to the sound of his receding footfalls as they were swallowed by the night, unable to keep his fingertips from tracing the lingering feeling of Elio’s lips pressed to his.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much for reading. This fic owns my ass, but I can't remember the last time I've enjoyed doing something more.


	3. Oliver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, people. Some smut and angst ahead. Please keep your hands and arms inside the ride at all times and hold on!

 

 

The next few days passed with a familiar agony. They flitted around one another, a tiring dance of longing looks across the pool deck and aborted cautious conversations. Elio held him at bay with avoidance and a prickliness that rivaled even their earliest interactions together, and yet in between there were glimpses of something bright and hopeful buried somewhere underneath; a shared, secret smile over their gelato when the afternoon guest misquoted _Manzoni_. The fleeting touch of their fingers when Oliver handed him the espresso pot. A yearning glance when Elio wandered past the open bathroom door. Oliver drank these moments in like a man stranded in the desert.

 

Unfortunately, they seemed to butt heads just as frequently.

 

“I just find it hard to believe that someone as particular as you would choose a music program at USC over one of the higher ranked schools, that’s all.” Oliver had said as they’d dried off from a morning swim. He couldn't remember who had brought it up.

 

Elio had shaken his head incredulously. “It  _is_ in the top one percent…”

 

“Yeah, you impressed me with that statistic already,” Oliver groused. “Is it the best composition program in the country?”

 

“No, but…”

 

Oliver slung his towel around his shoulders, hands held out in mute self-satisfaction.

 

Elio huffed, crossing thin arms over his chest. “What do you have against California?” he demanded, exasperated.

 

“Nothing,” said Oliver glibly and leaned down to pull his espadrilles over damp feet. “Did you just look at a map and pick the state farthest away from New York?” He couldn’t look at him when he said it – which should have been his first clue that he'd widely overstepped.

 

When the silence had gone on long enough, he had known it had been the wrong thing to say without even risking a glance up. Before sliding a mask of indifference in place and mounting his bike, Elio had looked utterly gutted. They’d ridden back to the villa in silence.

 

So maybe some of their conversations weren’t so cautious, after all.

 

On the afternoon of their third day together, Oliver had grown anxious. They’d returned home from their ill-fated swim only to immediately retreat to opposite poles of the villa. All of his attempts at making amends had fallen on deaf ears: Elio had complained of a headache, currently his favorite excuse, and disappeared up to his room, leaving Oliver alone on the lawn with a novel, a towel, and too many thoughts.

 

After reading the same sentence for the fourth time over, he gave up. _What are you doing?_ This summer was passing, just as the last one had, just like every moment would until he did something to change their fate. Under a cloudless sky, Oliver tossed his book aside and took a quick inventory. Mafalda was helping Anchise pick apricots in the orchard, and the Perlmans had taken the car into town; they were alone. He marched resolutely into the house and up the stairs.

 

His determination didn’t start to flag until he’d unceremoniously opened the adjoining bedroom door and stood at the foot of the rickety metal bed. Elio was reclined on the mattress, blinking owlishly in the dusty sunlight, as if Oliver had just materialized before him.

 

_Shit._ Maybe he had been taking a nap after all. “Were you sleeping?” He asked guiltily.

 

Elio gave an unconvincing shake of his head and sat up, squinting.

 

“Can we get something straight?” Oliver asked before he lost his nerve, although he was disappointed to hear that most of the composure he’d rehearsed in his head had forsaken him.

 

Warily, Elio nodded.

 

Oliver had to peel his tongue from the suddenly dry roof of his mouth. “I came here for you.” He felt like an idiot in the silence that followed, but knew that sentence merited repeating. He started again. “I came here for _you_ \- because I need to…”

 

Finally, Elio spoke. “I know. But you didn’t have to. You can clear your conscience.” He held his hands out, palms aloft as if in frustration. “I don’t regret anything, either.”

 

Oliver raked his fingers through his hair. It took effort to refrain from pulling it out - they seemed to be going in circles. “Fuck, Elio. I’m not here out of a sense of obligation,” he said sadly.

 

“Aren’t you?” Elio challenged, peaks of color rising to his pale cheeks. “That seems to be a running theme with you. Oliver the Martyr – always doing ‘the right thing’. ‘What goes on out there in the world is too scary for Elio’, that’s what you said the other night, isn’t it? You had no choice but to leave, to go and get married, all because you don’t think I can handle _real life_.”

 

“I never said that,” retorted Oliver. “Look, you’ve never…” he stopped and shook his head, trying again. “What we did, what we had. Last summer - it could not have been a cushier birth for what we started. But the world is not kind to people who are like us. You don’t know what it’s like to bring something like that out into the open.”

 

Elio glared at him. “And you do?” he asked, half defiant and half probing.

 

A few seconds ticked by. “A little bit,” he amended, falling quiet. Elio didn’t need the details right now. He didn’t need to know about the tireless craving for a father’s approval he had no hope of ever earning, no matter how many degrees he acquired. He didn’t need to know about the relationships he’d let fall away for fear of how they’d be received by everyone around him. Certainly not about the local news stories he’d skimmed and cast aside in disgust, young men beaten or killed just for daring to love another boy, and thought to himself _that could have been me._ Or really, the deep, darkest fear that he refused to even contemplate – _what if that were Elio?_ “That’s something I didn’t _want_ you to ever know.”

 

“As if I’m not going to find out for myself eventually?”

 

“Elio…”

 

“You do realize I’m going away to school, right?” Elio rubbed his palms on the tops of his thighs, green eyes flashing dangerously. “That I’ll be living in dormitories? Going out at night in LA? What do you think happens there?”

 

Out of nowhere, Oliver’s skin flushed cold to hot. “What are you saying?”

 

Elio’s mouth twisted scornfully. “Or do you honestly think I haven’t already had opportunities since you’ve been gone?” It was pointed and derisive.

 

Oliver tried to refuse the bait – this could go nowhere good - but it was impossible. “What kind of opportunities?” he asked warningly.

 

“You think you’re the only guy around who has wanted to fuck me?”

 

It felt like a sucker punch to the gut; Oliver was immediately winded. “You shouldn’t talk like that,” he managed between gritted teeth. “Do you realize how dangerous…? No, you’re smarter than that. You wouldn’t.” It wasn’t what he wanted to say. The last thing he needed in that moment was for Elio to rise to the bait, and yet the challenge tumbled out of his mouth faster than he could stop it. Apparently, some sick, masochistic part of him was curious.

 

Slowly, Elio rose from the bed. “You’re right,” he hummed sarcastically. With a short step forward, he was suddenly standing just inches away, arms hung casually at his sides, fingertips twitching. “I’m far too ‘smart’ to pursue some stranger who rolls through town.” Elio was so close he could smell him now, face tilted up to stare at him unflinchingly. The air that blew between them from the opened windows seemed to crackle with a charge of electricity.

 

Oliver swallowed hard and held his ground. Suddenly he was inundated with images – Elio’s long, ivory neck mottled with marks put there by someone else. Hands, so much larger than Elio’s own, caressing his sides, fingernails raking down the narrow ribcage. Elio’s voice catching with emotion on his own name while he looked into a different set of eyes.

 

The thought of him with some other man sent Oliver into a frenzy so intense it shocked him. With staggering force he suddenly understood - when it came to Elio there was no limit to what he would do to protect him, to keep him for himself. The mere thought of another man even _looking_ at him in that way had Oliver realizing he was capable of maiming a human being without so much as a second thought – and yet when he’d discovered his fiancée flaunting an affair before his very eyes his response had been to laugh incredulously?

 

Desire coursed through Oliver’s veins like a drug. With Elio this close there was no amount of willpower strong enough to hold him back; he reached out a hand and gently brushed the soft skin under his jaw.

 

Elio gulped.

 

Oliver couldn’t help but smirk. “I guess I just called your bluff.”

 

“I wasn’t bluffing,” Elio tried to retort, but Oliver could feel his breath quickening.

 

“You’re the one who kissed _me_ the other night.” Oliver leaned closer, drawn in with a magnetic pull.

 

“Only because I knew you’d stop me.”

 

“Well, I’m not stopping you now.”

 

With their mouths so close they were essentially breathing one another’s air, Elio made a broken noise and reached for him hungrily - but Oliver was already there. He dragged Elio closer until there was no space between them and he could feel Elio’s hardness through his jeans.

 

There were hands tugging at his hair and it felt as if he were coming apart at the seams. “Oh, God,” Oliver moaned into Elio’s mouth.

 

“Oliver,” Elio breathed it like a prayer, eyes closed, their foreheads pressed together.

 

His body took over. Moving on autopilot, Oliver ran a hand down to the crook of Elio’s knee, pulling his leg up, up, until it was wrapped around his waist and half of the boy’s minute weight rested in his arms. Elio may have murmured something then, but it wasn’t _Stop_ so Oliver didn’t. He grabbed the other slim thigh and lowered them both to the bed, Elio resting snugly in his lap.

 

Elio kissed him like his life depended on it – like he’d been holding his breath for an eternity and finally the air was plentiful again. “Please,” he gasped, rutting forward.

 

With Elio on top of him like this it was the perfect motion to grind their groins against one another, a delicious yet agonizing drag of sensation. That was it for Oliver. He could barely get his hands to move fast enough as he worked open zippers and buttons that separated them. With one hand he enclosed both of their swollen cocks, the other arm snaking around Elio’s back to slide up his t-shirt, keeping him in place with fingers pressed between the notches knobby of his spine.

 

When Oliver touched him, Elio jolted as if he’d been electrocuted.

 

Through the fog of need, Oliver scanned his face. “You okay?”

 

Elio nodded briskly instead of answering, lower lip caught tightly between his teeth. He seemed to be blinking back tears.

 

Oliver felt his brow furrow. “You sure?” He needed actual words. If they stopped now, he was sure he’d probably die. But Elio was, had always been, more important.

 

“Yes,” Elio gasped, hands moving restlessly from Oliver’s shoulders, his face, his hair. “Just…move.”

 

Oliver didn’t need to be told twice. His larger hand dragged over them both, slowly at first, quickly gaining momentum. Catching pearls of leaking fluid on the upstroke, he slicked them both with his palm. The feeling of Elio’s scorching length against his, the way he could enfold them both so perfectly, made his vision tunnel, the need to touch, to lay _claim_ , controlling all else. This would be over in a matter of seconds – there was no way around it.

 

The feeling, evidently, was mutual. Elio quivered like a livewire in his arms, breaths beginning to stutter. When he suddenly bowed, teeth closing over the tender skin of Oliver’s collarbone, it was his undoing. Oliver increased his speed and held the agile body in his arms tighter until he felt Elio shatter apart and spill hotly over his hand. He followed mere seconds later with a primal growl.

 

How long they sat there, Elio’s legs splayed around him, panting into one another’s skin, Oliver didn’t know. He was afraid to be the first one to move, to speak, just in case he broke the spell. He settled for tracing idle shapes on Elio’s lower back until he shuddered, the sweat cooling on his skin. When Elio moved to peel himself away Oliver captured him around his slender shoulders and pulled down until he was on his back on the bed, Elio tucked firmly against his side. He cleaned them up half-heartedly with a pair of boxer shorts he found on the floor.

 

For several moments more they just breathed. Elio fingered the star on his necklace – which Oliver couldn’t help but notice he no longer wore on his own ivory neck.  The heat in the room was stifling and the bed so narrow they barely fit, but if Elio didn’t seem to mind it, Oliver was not inclined to move. If anything, Elio seemed to burrow closer. “You okay?” he couldn’t help but question.

 

Elio rubbed his forehead against Oliver’s bare shoulder. “You keep asking me that.”

 

“Well, I keep wondering.”

 

He paused, as if taking stock. “I think so.”

 

They fell into companionable silence once again, the afternoon light just beginning to wane. There was a peace to the moment that Oliver hadn’t felt in nearly a year, and he reveled in it until Elio spoke again. “I haven’t slept with any other men,” he admitted quietly.

 

Oliver allowed himself to release a breath of relief he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in.

 

“I wasn’t lying,” Elio continued. “I went to a few clubs in Milan after the holidays. There were a few times…sometimes people look at me differently now, since you. I’m not sure why. But I didn’t go through with it.”

 

Listening quietly, Oliver felt his throat grow tight. Elio had grown tense within the curve of his arm. He stroked a soothing hand down his flank. “Why not?” he asked gently, sensing there was more he was meant to hear.

 

Elio gave a slight shake of his head. “I don’t know. It felt like I was only interested in getting back at you in some way,” he admitted softly, “which didn’t make sense, because you never would have known.”

 

Heart breaking, Oliver watched Elio bring a hand up to scrub at his eyes, pinching the skin over his nose. “Hey,” Oliver tried to get his attention and settled for reaching out to capture the hand that was obscuring his ashen face. “For what it’s worth, I’m very grateful that you didn’t.”

 

Elio scoffed wetly. “You’d have gotten over it.”

 

“No,” Oliver insisted. “I wouldn’t have ‘gotten over it’. I never just _got over you_ because I’m not sure it’s possible. Don’t you see? Everything fell apart after I left, I just flailed from one misstep to the next. I thought that going back to my old life was what was best for everyone, but it wasn’t, it can’t be, because I’m not sure I can live without you. That’s why I had to come back here, I had to tell you. This isn’t over, I can’t let it be.” It felt as if a wall were coming down from around his heart, one that had been there for a very long time, maybe always, and now there was no way to stop what came pouring forth.

 

As he’d been speaking, Elio pushed himself up on one elbow to stare at him. His eyes were brimmed with something akin to disbelief. “You still want to be with me?” he asked, then tossed his head in reproach. “Do you…you want more than just another few weeks?” his voice was soft, hopeful.

 

It always rattled Oliver how someone so very observant as Elio could be blind about this particular subject – of how much he was wanted. “Of course,” he began, reaching out to brush the backs of his fingers down that angular face.

 

“But why?” Elio demanded.

 

With an exasperated sigh, Oliver let his hand drop. “How can you still ask that?” If this was a game, he didn’t understand and he didn’t want to play, not anymore. “Elio, I _came here for you_.” He cupped Elio’s chin in his hands so that he couldn’t look away, a final earnest attempt.

 

Elio pulled himself free. “You said that already,” he implored, and sat up further. “What does that even mean?”

 

Oliver stared up at the fervent dark eyes before him in bewilderment. His mouth opened, but words didn’t come.

 

That seemed to distress Elio even further. “You said you don’t want me to know about ‘that world’. But you still want me to be a part of your life? How, as your buddy Elio from Italy?” he spat, and though he may have been attempting disdain, his voice was beginning to waver.

 

At a loss for words, Oliver could only gape back, eyes wide and pulse beginning to thunder in his ears. “No, I…” he trailed off, unsure how to finish.

 

“Do you want me to go back to New York with you?” Elio asked hesitantly.

 

The simple answer was a resounding, heartfelt _yes_. But could he really ask that of Elio, at a pivotal stage of life where his potential knew no limits and there should be nothing to tether his feet to the ground? And even if he could be so selfish as to keep the boy close to him, to what end? Did the desire to truly _be_ with Elio outweigh all the risks he’d only just professed to keep him safe from? Or was it all, yet again, one of Oliver’s misguided attempts at trying to do what he thought was right, even if it brought everyone (including himself) misery?

 

And why hadn’t he thought this through before jumping on a plane?

 

Elio seemed to read something into his silence that he desperately didn’t want find. “Do you even know what you want from me?” he all but whispered.

 

Oliver swallowed what felt like a shard of glass. “I want anything you’re willing to give me. Whatever small fragment of you that may be, I’d take it gladly.”

 

Expelling a trembling breath, Elio raked a hand through his unruly curls. “My head is killing me,” he murmured softly, closing his eyes. When he opened them again they were red-rimmed and downcast. “Would you…could you go?” and then, painfully small, “please?”

 

There was nothing he could do but nod. “Sure,” Oliver agreed and numbly withdrew from the bed. He couldn’t look back as he slowly retreated from the room – if he did he might start begging. He knew he was not above getting down on his knees before this young man to make a point – he’d done it before. But if there was a shred of self-preservation left in his body, he was determined to keep it.

 

At least for another couple of hours, anyway.

 

 *

 

The afternoon descended into evening, as it inevitably does. Oliver killed time drowning in self-loathing and, appallingly, for the first time drawing a picture in his mind of a future for himself that had Elio in it.

 

He could give notice at Columbia and apply for a position at another university; he wouldn’t be leaving anything behind that he’d truly miss. New York now represented an empty shell of a life he couldn’t stand to return to without Elio. In the end, he didn’t really care where it was they lived, so long as there wasn’t an ocean between them anymore. Maybe they could go somewhere completely new, a fresh start for them both, in a place where nobody knew their names and Oliver could be Elio and Elio could be Oliver and no one would be the wiser. He pictured an apartment that they both came home to at the end of every day, one with a piano in a sunlit corner for Elio to play Bach while Oliver graded papers at the table. He dreamt of summers in Italy where they’d sneak off to their favorite hideaways just for the nostalgia and not necessity, and winters with Samuel and Annella beaming at them fondly over a dinner table.

 

With every new, wonderful passing thought, Oliver chuckled in amazement. As it often happened, Elio astounded him. That brilliant, beautiful, fervent mind of his had probably imagined similar realities before they’d ever parted. It troubled Oliver to realize that he’d never even possessed the capability to dare to dream of a life so perfect.

 

“ _Dov'è Elio_?” Samuel asked. _Where is he?_

 

Oliver looked up, pulled abruptly from his daydream. It was a familiar evening scene at the Perlman household: food was beginning to make its never-ending parade to the dinner table from the kitchen, aunts and uncles were ushering nieces and nephews away from a game of hide and seek, everyone was taking their seats under the light of candles and the slowly rising moon.

 

The only thing missing was Elio.

 

“ _Mafalda ha detto che non si sente bene,”_ Annella lamented with a small frown. _Not feeling well_. “Poor thing.”

 

_Really?_ Thought Oliver. Elio hadn’t left his room all day – skipping a meal under the ruse of illness was going a tad overboard, even after their admittedly uncomfortable afternoon encounter. Perhaps he’d left Elio more emotionally distraught than he’d realized, a thought that put Oliver immediately ill at ease. 

 

He tried to follow the Perlmans’ ever-typical laid-back lead, but found he was unable to stop his mounting concern. For the first time he decided to take the Professor’s earlier insistence that he forgo polite formalities, rushed through his dinner, and excused himself from the table. If anything, he was sure he saw matching looks of approval on Samuel and Annella’s faces.

 

Oliver climbed the stairs to the bedrooms two at a time. The bathroom was just the way he’d left it, dark and empty, and the door to the adjoining room was still firmly closed. Frowning, Oliver knocked gently. “Elio?”

 

No answer.

 

Cautiously, Oliver pushed the door open and stepped into the darkness. With only the very last vestiges of daylight, he could barely make out the prone figure on the bed. “Elio?” he whispered again.

 

There was no movement.

 

Using his senses and memory of the small, cluttered room as his guide, Oliver made his way across the floor. He reached for the lamp on the little makeshift table beside the bed and flicked it on, bathing a corner of the room in warm light. Elio was lying in the fetal position, face pressed into his pillow, emitting the heavy, rhythmic breaths of someone deeply asleep. He was still dressed in the same t-shirt and jeans Oliver had left him in.

 

Oliver nearly didn’t have the heart to wake him. Elio always looked so undeniably soft, so at peace when he was sleeping, it felt almost cruel to bring him back from whatever lovely place he was visiting. But the faint line of tension on his pale forehead, even at rest, and a feeling of unease in Oliver’s gut made the decision for him. He crouched beside the bed and, with a gentle hand, shook the boy’s shoulder. “Elio,” he called.

 

Elio rolled onto his back with a breathy moan. Slowly, he seemed to orient himself and began to open his eyes. When he did, he squinted at Oliver and immediately slammed them shut. “What time is it?” he croaked.

 

“It’s after nine. You missed dinner,” Oliver told him. “Are you alright?”

 

Elio’s tongue darted out, moistening dry lips. “Yeah,” he said unconvincingly, prying his eyelids open to slits. “My head is killing me, though.” He admitted with a moan, and threw an arm over his face, hiding in the crook of his elbow.

 

Oliver read the lines of discomfort on the mostly hidden face and chewed the inside of his cheek. Truthfully, he hadn’t known what to expect when he had come up here. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find Elio hunched over his desk with his headphones in, working on music or scribbling in his journal and completely lost in thought. Maybe trying to bury his turbulent emotions in a novel, not yet ready to face a room full of people after such a rollercoaster of a day. But this – this was Elio in real, physical pain. It was foreign and discomfiting and Oliver felt ill prepared.

 

He searched for a way to be useful. “Here,” he offered, and reached for a shirt hanging on the back of the desk chair. He draped it over the lamp, decreasing the brightness by half. Long shadows danced up the walls as he stood. “Is that better?”

 

Tentatively, Elio lowered his arm and blinked at him. A small nod. “Thanks,” he breathed.

 

“Wait here,” Oliver said, and went to the bathroom. He returned with a bottle of painkillers and a tumbler of water, handing them over.

 

Elio hesitated before pushing himself up on wobbly elbows to accept the offerings.

 

Oliver watched him struggle with the cap on the medicine bottle for a few seconds before reaching to take over. “You’re sick.”

 

“It’s this damn headache,” Elio admitted after swallowing the tablets and a small mouthful of liquid. “It's been bothering me for a few days, it won’t seem to go away.” He flopped back down onto the mattress as if drained by the slight action.

 

Oliver wrestled with concern and his need to give Elio some space. Concern won out, and he took a seat on the edge of the squeaking bed. “Can I bring you up some food? You really should eat something.” He laid a tentative hand on Elio’s arm and, when his touch was not rejected, offered a hesitant smile.

 

“No, thanks,” Elio sighed, and then a little smirk appeared on his face. “I think I’ll pass. Can you make an excuse to my mom for me? Thanks, man.” He reached out and cuffed Oliver playfully on the shoulder.

 

Eyes rolling, Oliver resisted the urge to tickle his sensitive ribcage. “Nice,” he grinned wider, an undeniable warmth emanating from within his chest. “You’re lucky that you look like death warmed over right now.” He settled for a well-aimed but gentle poke to the slender waist.

 

Elio caught his finger and didn’t let go. The teasing smile on his face slackened. “Can we talk about earlier?” he asked quietly.

 

“Of course. But we don’t need to right now.” Oliver studied Elio’s colorless face, still squinting in the minimal light. He would love to have stayed sitting there forever, to get lost in the emerald eyes he’d been missing like a phantom limb for a year with no respite. And even more, to tell Elio about all the amazing plans he’d been making in his head for the better part of half a day. How thrilling to think what else they may be allowed to envision when given more than just a few hours? “We have plenty of time. Right now what we need to do is let you rest.” He gave into the urge to stroke Elio’s hair, pushing dark curls off his forehead.

 

Elio sighed and leaned into him like a touch-starved cat. “Okay,” he whispered, eyes falling shut.

 

“Okay,” Oliver repeated, and watched him fade back to sleep. It was just as spellbinding as watching the sunset over the tops of the trees from the villa balcony.

 

After an indeterminate amount of time, Oliver forced himself to turn off the light, close the shutters and windows to ready the room for nightfall, and retreat. When he returned to the first floor he found the family congregated around the television in the salon, smoking and chatting languidly.

 

Annella noticed him immediately and sobered. “Oliver, how is he?”

 

“He’s got quite the headache. He’s still resting.” Worry edged out from the confines of his relaxed expression, he was sure, because the Perlmans both looked a little chastised. Clearly, he hadn’t been the only one to assume that their son’s absence could have easily been chalked up to a good sulk.

 

“ _Oh, mon pauvre chéri_.” Annella murmured softly. She sent him a shrewd smile. “Are you going out tonight, darling?”

 

He wasn’t and she knew that, so Oliver attempted to smother the blush that heated his cheeks. “I don’t think I will, no. I might head up to do some reading. Turn in early.” He said, tipping his head back in the direction he had come.

 

Samuel was beaming at him. “Sounds like a fine idea,” he nodded. “Later!”

 

Oliver all but ran up the stairs. As quietly as possible he used the bathroom and got ready for the night. Before returning to his own bed he first checked on Elio, who hadn’t moved an inch in the time he’d been gone. Fondly, Oliver reached down to drag the sheets tangled in his feet up and over his pliant form. After allowing a few last lingering moments, he withdrew, leaving the adjoining door open. Should Elio need him for anything during the night, Oliver would be able to hear.

 

A stack of books sat waiting for him beside the twin beds. Oliver propped himself against his pillows and settled in, ready to be transported by the words on the page. He smiled to himself, not at all disturbed by his inability to focus: because his mind transformed every character into Elio and Oliver, and every ending was happy.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are a little chaotic at Casa Elleinadine for the next little while, so it may be several days before I'm able to post the next chapter. But fear not - it's already written.
> 
> Nothing helps a girl find some spare time to update like kudos and comments!!
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you as always, dear readers! <3


	4. Oliver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things take a serious turn for the worst here, friends. Please note there is NO Character Death tag on this story and there never will be, so don't despair, and take me at my word: I solemnly swear to repair (mostly) whatever I damage.
> 
> Prepare for medical terminology brought to you by intensive research via Dr. Google. 
> 
> As always, thank you ever so much for reading.

 

Without intending to, Oliver slept late the next morning. The melancholy thoughts that hid in the dark corners of his mind had given him reprieve for the first night in a long time, and he awoke feeling lighter than usual. The day stretched out before him with hope and possibility.

 

When he’d looked in on Elio, the boy had still been peaceful. Oliver decided to leave him sleeping and joined the Perlmans for breakfast on his own. They ate in companionable silence around the rarely used indoor dining table – dark clouds had rolled in overnight and threatened to release the spoils of a summer storm. Oliver lingered over espresso, sharing concepts he’d been working on for a second manuscript and eagerly devouring the Professor’s notes. Time passed, and still Elio didn’t emerge.

 

Oliver returned to the silent stairs, the warning trill of alarm in his belly, until he heard the toilet flush. Finally, some signs of life. He entered the bedroom, toed off his shoes, and padded to the adjoining doorway, peering inside. “Elio?”

 

The room was empty.

 

Frowning, Oliver surveyed the rumpled bedclothes from the corner of his eye as he crossed to the bathroom. He knocked once on the wall, but the door was open. “Elio, you okay?” he asked, and stepped inside.

 

Elio was curled up on the tile beneath the window, wedged into the narrow space between the toilet and the bidet. His pallor was a shocking white, whiter than the porcelain of the commode he was lying beside, and looked paler still against the raven curls sticking to his temples. He curled into a tighter ball when he sensed another presence in the room, though he didn’t open his eyes, and let out a pitiful moan.

 

Oliver’s stomach plummeted. “Shit,” he murmured under his breath, unable to conceal his shock and dismay at the pitiful sight. “You look terrible.”

 

There was no witty retort to be offered. Elio tucked his head towards his knees and brought both hands up to clasp the back of his head.

 

“Elio,” Oliver began, and noticed immediately when the boy flinched at the sound of his voice. “Is it your head?” he asked gently, lowering his tone.

 

The barest of nods.

 

Oliver desperately wanted to reach out to touch him, and cursed his own large frame that had no hope in Hell of fitting into the tight spaces that Elio effortlessly seemed to. In the position he was lying there was no way for Oliver to get closer without stepping on some precious outstretched body part. “I need to move you, okay? I can’t reach you like this.” He told him apologetically.

 

Elio let out a low whimper.

 

The sound made Oliver’s heart clench painfully in his chest. “I’m sorry,” he crooned, and wrapped a hand around one of Elio’s thin ankles. When he pulled, Elio slid across the tiled floor one inch at a time until he reached the open space that lay before the doorway. “Alright. You’re okay,” Oliver murmured, shuffling around in the small room until he could crouch down by Elio’s partially hidden face. “Let me get you some water.”

 

“No,” Elio croaked, and curled around his stomach a little tighter.

 

“Alright,” Oliver conceded in sympathy, and stroked the sweaty hair away from the pale face. There were purpling crescents under the curtain of dark eyelashes that he was certain hadn’t been there before. “Let’s get you back to bed, then.”

 

Elio rubbed his cheek against the marble. “But it’s cool here.” He protested weakly.

 

Oliver reached out and rested a hand against the boy’s forehead. The skin under his palm was clammy but not overly warm. “Then I’ll bring you a damp cloth,” he promised, “but I’m not leaving you here like this.” He could make it sound like he was being the responsible adult if that would help. Elio didn’t necessarily need to know that the sight of him there on the bathroom floor made Oliver’s stomach knot with more unbridled worry with each passing second.

 

The only response he got was a sigh.

 

Choosing to take it as unspoken agreement, Oliver leaned down and picked up each of Elio’s wrists, untangling his fingers from his hair. He looped the slender arms around his own neck. “Just hold on to me. That’s it.” He scooped up Elio’s slighter frame, one arm under his knees and the other at his back, and carried him through to the bigger of the two bedrooms. Holding him like this, Elio’s face pressed stiffly into the crook of his neck, Oliver felt a surge of protectiveness course through his veins with feral intensity. Elio _needed_ him – to take over, to make the right decisions, and damn it, this time he wasn’t going to screw it up.

 

Setting him down gently on the rumpled yellow sheets, Oliver coaxed him into raising his arms to remove his shirt, and then helped him lie down before finishing the undressing until he was clad in only his boxers.

 

Throughout the procedure Elio remained disturbingly silent. With each concerned glance Oliver cast back at his face, never once did he see the sharp, vivid eyes looking back at him. Elio remained rigid like a mannequin; content with moving whichever way Oliver manipulated him. Even more worrying, his first priority upon lying on the bed was to once again cover his head with a moan, turning away from the windows stiffly. Oliver hurried across the room to close the shutters.

 

“I’ll be right back, okay?” He stroked the back of Elio’s head tenderly, but couldn’t be certain if he’d been heard. Oliver had to tear himself away from the room.

 

He found the Perlmans reading together in the study. Oliver realized he probably didn’t need to say a word – the unease he felt pouring off of himself in waves had to also be visible. “Elio is not alright,” he forced himself to take a settling breath and speak firmly. “I think he needs a doctor.”

 

“Samuel…” Annella exhaled, capturing her husband’s arm in an anxious grip.

 

“I’ll call Gabriele.” Samuel said, abruptly pulling off his glasses.

 

A wave of relief rushed through Oliver’s body at their immediate disquiet. Clearly, the Perlmans’ laidback, autonomous parenting style did not apply where their son’s health was concerned. He was left standing directionless in a flurry of activity. The Perlmans abandoned the sofa, books and paper’s falling from their laps, forgotten. Annella swiftly left the room and Oliver registered her hurried footsteps tapping up the stairs. The Professor rifled through a rolodex in one hand and snatched up the telephone in the other. Within moments he was speaking quickly with someone in brisk Italian.

 

Left alone, Oliver paced an anxious hole in the hallway floor. Every fiber of his being wanted to be back in that darkened bedroom, but there was a new atmosphere in the house that left him feeling uneasy and in the way. He felt like an interloper, the _Americano_ who had returned, essentially uninvited, with dubious intentions. Never before had he felt more aware that Elio, even as a poised, fully-fledged eighteen-year-old, was someone’s child.

 

When the Doctor arrived and was escorted quickly up the stairs, Oliver allowed himself to linger impatiently in the doorway to Elio’s old bedroom. Of course the Perlmans’ knew a doctor who would make house calls – they knew every professional in a thirty-mile radius. He only wished, selfishly, that they had called one who had a better handle on English.

 

He watched and listened as Elio was assessed and caught snatches of the conversation here and there. _Temperatura_ was easy enough to figure out,  _testa_ he knew was ‘head’ and  _occhi_ were ‘eyes’. But another, unknown word was thrown around several times and Oliver looked between Samuel and Annella expectantly.

 

“ _Non soffre di_ _emicranie_.” Annella told the Doctor. She was sitting on the edge of the bed gently petting her son’s hair.

 

“ _Emicranie_?” Oliver repeated.

 

Samuel seemed to notice him for the first time and gave an apologetic smile. “Migraines,” he translated. “Elio has never had one before, that we know of.”

 

Oliver looked to the bed. “And that’s what he thinks this is?”

 

“Possibly.”

 

He tried to suppress his doubt. Oliver’s mother was a migraine sufferer, although his father used to joke that she always seemed to come down with one whenever his Bubba visited. Once every month or so she’d disappear into a room with the curtains drawn for half a day until the attack receded. This was completely different, and there was nothing remotely amusing about it. The pain Elio was in seemed to be unrelenting. Even now, in the dim light, Oliver could see every sinewy muscle in the lean chest was pulled taught. It looked as though it took every shred of restraint in his weakened body not to recoil in agony when the Doctor tested his pupils with a penlight.

 

Ten or fifteen minutes passed, Oliver couldn’t be entirely sure. He felt as if the entire Earth had stopped spinning while he waited, breath held, for Elio to turn and look at him, to smile. The Doctor eventually seemed satisfied with his exam and began speaking quickly to Annella over Elio’s motionless form as if he weren’t even there. Oliver would have been insulted on his behalf if he weren’t eagerly waiting for Samuel to translate for him – or if Elio had been even somewhat aware.

 

The finding: Elio seemed to be suffering from a severe migraine, even though he had no history of them. Oliver tried to advocate – something niggling at the back of his brain wouldn’t quiet down – but between the language barrier and the Doctor’s steadfast position, the diagnosis was definitive for the time being.

 

That’s when the giant needle came out of his leather bag. Elio was given an intramuscular injection of Demerol while Oliver watched, wincing at the splinters that dug into his fingertips from the doorframe he clenched at his back. The needle, he wanted to argue with his last breath, seemed far too large to be used on someone as slight as Elio. He could only stare, horrified, while Elio was rolled to his side and the hollow tip pierced the thin flesh of his lower back. The flinch and whimper of pain that left Elio’s body made Oliver want to throw himself down over him like a human shield.

 

It was worth it, however, to watch the pain melt off the boy’s face in increments with each minute that passed. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief and the Doctor took his leave.

 

“He said that Elio should sleep for the rest of the day. We need to watch for fever, or anything else out of the ordinary. But otherwise he should be just fine,” Samuel explained as Annella saw the Doctor out.

 

Oliver sighed with relief. “Good,” he murmured absently.

 

“Oliver.”

 

“Yes? Sorry.” Oliver pulled his gaze from the prone figure on the bed to find the Professor smiling kindly at him, mildly amused at his lack of focus.

 

“Quite alright,” Samuel replied and began to back out of the room. “You’ll let us know if he needs anything.”

 

It was not a request, nor was there a threat or demand made in his tone. It was simply spoken as if stating the obvious, and Oliver locked eyes with this person who so readily trusted him with all that he held dear. He could only nod in agreement.

 

The room fell quiet. Oliver approached the bed and stared down at Elio’s now serene, sleep-slackened features. He let the rhythmic rise and fall of the reedy chest lull him into a trance as the unexpected events of the last several days seemed to hit with the weight of a freight train.

 

Planning a return trip to Italy all those weeks ago it had been the easiest decision of his life. There hadn’t been a singular moment of clarity, or a series of events that lead to some long-awaited epiphany – just a dawning awareness that if he didn’t get the chance to so much as lay eyes on Elio again he’d never want to breathe in the start another day. It had all seemed so simple, so finite. And yet standing here now before him in a maelstrom of dismay Oliver had never felt more uncertain. In the short time they’d been reunited he couldn’t help but feel that his presence just seemed to bring Elio more harm and confusion than anything else.

 

Of course, the unwelcome sight of Elio forced into a medicated slumber did nothing to alleviate that concern.

 

The floorboards in the hallway creaked. Oliver looked up to find that Samuel had never completely left, and he now hovered in the doorway. “Oliver,” he began, and the indecision in his voice made it sound unfamiliar to Oliver’s ears. “I may be overstepping here, but there’s something I wanted to share with you, if you wouldn’t mind.”

 

Oliver swallowed. “Please,” he offered, and tried hopelessly to prepare himself for whatever was coming next.

 

“Just an observation, really. Elio would tell you this himself if not for his pride, perhaps, standing in the way.” Samuel paused and his gaze rested on his son’s sleeping figure. He seemed to wage a war with the words at the tip of his tongue, until his expression softened even further and he continued. “I’d like you to know that Elio has always wanted to attend school at Julliard. For about as long as I can remember, that’s all he’s ever talked about. We could see that his decision not to apply was painful, but…clearly, he thought that to be in such close proximity to you would be even more so. In the rare moments that I could get him to speak of you he made it clear that the last thing he wanted was to cause any problems for your life in New York.

 

“Annella and I respected your decision to return to America, and everything that entailed. I can only imagine how difficult those choices must have been for you. It seems you weren’t the only one willing to sacrifice your own happiness for someone you cared deeply for. It’s something that makes me very proud of both of you. ' _The most sublime act is to set another before you'_ \- tearing off our own limbs in offering without ever expecting them back. However, we need to be sure it’s a limb we can accept losing, and one we can manage to live without.” He looked up then and the smile from his lips strayed to gleam warmly in his eyes. “This might just be the opinion of a father and the man who is grateful for you and the affinity you have for my son…but I think you’ve both made an admirable effort at trying to live as less than whole. It might be time to try it a different way, now.”

 

The air in the room suddenly felt thin. Oliver blinked the burning sensation from his eyes and made an attempt to clear his throat, but words still didn’t come. He settled for nodding and prayed that for now, at least, it would be enough.

 

The Professor seemed to see something in Oliver’s expression that he’d been looking for. He nodded silently back, crossed briefly to the bed to stroke a gentle hand through his son’s hair, clasped Oliver’s shoulder, and then left.

 

Elio murmured something unintelligible.

 

Oliver took a seat on the edge of the mattress. “Elio? Are you awake?” he asked softly.

 

“…Papa?” Eyelashes fluttered but never parted to reveal more than slits of foggy hazel.

 

“No, he just left. Do you want me to get him?”

 

Elio’s hand drifted slowly up the length of Oliver’s torso. Clumsy fingers wove themselves into his hair, pulling lightly on his scalp. His lips quirked faintly into a lazy smile. “I thought I dreamt you,” he whispered, his words a secret.

 

Drunk, overtired, or stoned on narcotics, Elio was endearing as always. “Nope,” Oliver unwound the fingers on top of his head and gently placed the smaller hand back on the bed. “I’m here. I’m not going to leave you.” Peace washed over Oliver like a soothing balm as the verity of such a simple statement began to resonate. Maybe he didn’t have any of the details worked out just yet – but one way or another, Oliver knew he wasn’t going anywhere without Elio. Possibly not ever again, if he had anything to say about it.

 

“Okay,” Elio sighed, and faded out again.

 

The twin mattresses had been pushed back together. Oliver allowed himself another moment or two of reverence for the sleeping Adonis beside him before rounding the bed and reclining carefully on the opposite side. Against a stack of pillows he returned to the dog-eared page of his book and began the first chapter of fulfilling a lasting promise.

 

 *

 

Oliver awoke suddenly and jarringly – the kind of rude awakening that always seemed to go with dozing off by accident.

 

Scrubbing a hand down his face and setting aside the book that now rested open on his chest, he struggled to orient himself: Evening light filtered through the slats of the closed shutters. The room had grown uncomfortably muggy and warm. Rain rattled its staccato beat against the windowpane. The tray Mafalda had brought up for lunch had long since grown cold.

 

Despite the storm that raged outside, Oliver couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that he’d been roused by something else; the type of feeling that made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck, or that falling sensation in the pit of his stomach. Suddenly on edge, he reached for the lamp on the bedside table and thrust the room sharply into focus.

 

Immediately, he knew what had woken him.

 

The mattress quaked as the body beside him shivered and tossed listlessly. The heat Oliver had felt in the room seemed to come directly from Elio himself – as if he shared a bed with a narrow, vibrating furnace beneath the thin sheets. The boy’s face was waxen and bathed in a sheen of sweat. As Oliver watched, pale lips parted and emitted a barely audible moan of pain.

 

“Elio?” His stomach plummeted.

 

No answer.

 

Oliver scrambled to the other side of the bed on unsteady legs. “Hey, hey,” he called anxiously. When he reached out to stroke back the unruly curls they were damp to the touch. “Elio, wake up.” But Elio didn’t appear to be sleeping. His eyes, though tightly shut, were creased with pain, and when Oliver listened closely he heard that every exhaled breath veiled a tiny, distressed whimper.

 

The thoughts that raced through Oliver’s mind were too frantic to gather, to prioritize. He lowered his hand from the dark hair to the pale skin of Elio’s forehead – and nearly jerked away in shock.

 

Fever. Where in the hell had this fever come from, and how quickly? He couldn’t possibly have been asleep for long, but he cursed himself for not checking earlier in the day. This was clearly no migraine, although Oliver had never been more dismayed to be proven right. The Doctor had said to specifically watch for a raised temperature, so what did that mean?

 

“Shit,” Oliver muttered as panic began to set in. His eyes fell to where the blankets had been pushed down to Elio’s slender waist: there was a cluster of red spots on the alabaster flesh. Oliver pushed the fabric further aside – more patches of livid rash. “Where did this come from?”

 

Of course, he didn’t expect an answer, so it was even more surprising when he got one. “Oliver…” Elio moaned, and suddenly there were two owlish eyes blinking at him.

 

“I’m right here,” He tried to place himself in the line of sight, but it didn’t seem to matter - he wasn’t sure if Elio was really seeing him. His body began moving on its own validity, well before his mind had a chance to catch up. “Come on, we’ve got to go.”

 

The second Oliver placed a hand under Elio’s neck to raise him into a sitting position the boy let out a wail of sheer agony.

 

Oliver drew back as if burned. “Okay, okay. I’ve got you.” More slowly, he drew Elio up against his chest with careful hands at his back and shoulder. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.” Mechanically, Oliver lifted the rigid deadweight from the bed and barely noticed when Elio emptied the meager contents of his stomach down the front of his shirt.

 

His feet were moving, but he didn’t remember reaching the bottom of the stairs. “Samuel!” Oliver shouted blindly down the corridor, but barely noticed his own voice over the ringing in his ears.

 

Silence fell where the din of the household before supper had been before. A voice, footsteps, and then the Professor was standing in front of him with Annella over his shoulder.

 

“He needs a hospital,” was all Oliver could manage to croak.

 

Annella’s hand flew to her mouth. “ _Oh, mon Dieu_ …”

 

The villa erupted into commotion. Lights became brighter, voices louder, more frenetic. The Professor yelled for Anchise to bring the car around while Annella ran for a blanket that she tucked delicately around her son. Mafalda wrung her hands and dabbed at her eyes with her apron. Someone bustled and fretted anxiously around them, draping raincoats over their shoulders.

 

Oliver stood amidst the chaos like a boulder in white water; the waves kept crashing against him but he remained unyielding, unwilling to relinquish the charge in his arms. The skin of his throat was scalded where Elio’s face was pressed. He tried not to think about how it felt or what it might mean. He tried instead to concentrate on the singular noise that had started to reverberate in his skull, but the cacophony around him was too loud, too distracting, and he couldn’t make it out.

 

A hand touched his arm.

 

He turned to find Samuel holding the front door open. Oliver curled his upper body protectively over the form he carried and dashed out to where the car waited. He didn’t feel the torrent of rain that drenched his hair within seconds. He didn’t notice who opened the door for him as he lowered himself carefully into the tiny backseat with Elio cradled against him. He barely registered Samuel and Annella sitting up in the front, or when the car tore away from the house with the roar of gravel beneath its tires.

 

His focus was solely on Elio, who lay silent and shaking in his arms, and the one word that suddenly became clear as a bell as it screeched on repeat in his ears: _Please_.

 

 *

 

The drive to the hospital seemed to last an eternity, although the Professor kept assuring them that it would take less than fifteen minutes. At the speed he was driving Oliver wouldn’t have been surprised if he cut that time in half.

 

They had barely arrived at the entrance to emergency before Annella practically leapt from the moving vehicle to return moments later with strangers in scrubs and a gurney in tow. Like pulling off a Band-Aid in slow motion, Oliver released the bundle of skinny limbs he’d been holding onto and let Elio be taken from him one painful measure at a time. He followed the stretcher through the double doors as if tethered to it.

 

Inside they were whisked quickly to a curtained off area where Elio was passed from gurney to hospital bed like a ragdoll. The tiny space seemed to fill with staff in a dizzying blur of pale pastel uniforms. Elio’s slight frame became obscured at a breakneck pace – stethoscope, thermometer, hospital gown, IV. At any given moment there were no less than two sets of gloved hands touching him.

 

Beneath it all, Elio moaned, “Oliver.”

 

There was a white-clad arm preventing him from lunging forward, and a primal part of Oliver was about to break it. But then a featureless face was staring at him and a disembodied voice spoke – no, it wasn’t disembodied, it belonged to this person, this _pylon_ that was standing between him and the most precious thing he’d ever known, and it was coming from behind a surgical mask – but Oliver realized rather numbly that he couldn’t understand what was being said. The entire ward was just a pandemonium of too-loud chatter and none of it made sense because somehow, at some point, Oliver had completely lost his ability to comprehend Italian or rational thought.

 

“Move,” He ground out between gritted teeth.

 

More confusion, another strange voice added to the turmoil as a second body entered his field of vision and obscured his view of the bed. Oliver drowned out the alien words being shouted at him and fought off the hands at his chest.

 

Then, “Oliver, listen. _Please_ listen.”

 

Oliver turned, searching feverishly, and found a short figure amidst the sea of unknown bodies.

 

Samuel. He latched onto the familiar presence like a lifeline.

 

The Professor’s hands reached up to grip his shoulders firmly. “Oliver, they need us to go with them now.”

 

“Go…?”

 

“Yes. Elio is in good hands,” He pinned Oliver with a solemn gaze and held on tightly. When he tried to give a reassuring smile it didn’t reach his eyes. “But they think he may have come down with something that could be contagious, and we need to go take some medicine to make sure we don’t catch it.”

 

Contagious.

 

Images of frail, dying men in hospital beds from the _Times_ suddenly assaulted his vision. Oliver felt the entire universe collapse around him. No. They’d always been so careful. “I…do they think he – that we…that I could’ve– ” he couldn’t say it. There wasn’t enough oxygen in the room. Surely he was going to pass out, or throw up, or…

 

Samuel’s face fell. “No, no - of course not, son. Nothing like that.” He reached up and somehow wrapped an arm around Oliver’s broad shoulders. “They think it’s some kind of infection. They’re starting him on antibiotics right away, but we all need to take some, too. Just as a precaution.” The words were kind and gentle, as if he were reasoning with a child.

 

Slowly, Oliver realized he could breathe again. He allowed himself a moment to lean into the supportive hold, his port in the storm. “Okay,” he gulped.

 

The Professor beamed at him like he’d just solved World Hunger. “Good,” he encouraged, and began to lead him away.

 

Oliver craned his neck to try and look a last time for Elio, until the arm at his back tightened discreetly; he realized he must have done a fine job of marking himself as a liability.

 

“It’s okay. They’re going to take good care of him. It’ll be ok.” Samuel said, but it would have been a hell of a lot more convincing if the sentiment didn’t cause his voice to waver. “Come – we mustn’t keep Annella waiting.”

 

Slowly, the world began to right itself – the chaos seemed to stabilize, sounds took the shape of words, and the doctor from before was no longer faceless as he led them down a long, white hallway. Oliver didn’t care where they were going. He only knew that with each step he was getting further and further away from a piece of himself that had been carved away, and he already knew all too well what felt like to fear he might never get it back.

 

 *

 

  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *peeks from behind fingers* Still with me? Good. We'll make it through this together, I swear!!
> 
> "The most sublime act" quoted by Samuel is William Blake.
> 
> Comments are coveted and tended to like little pets.
> 
> Also, I do not know how to Tumblr, but follow me - elleinadine - if you're into that.


	5. Oliver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing to say here - other than read on, dear friends! 
> 
> Oh, perhaps I'll point out again that the only medical background I have is a basic St. John's Ambulatory first aid course that expired in 2010 - in other words, I basically have no idea what I'm talking about and Wikipedia is a lovely invention.
> 
> :)

 

“Oliver, eat something, _mon amour_.”

 

Oliver looked up to find Annella standing over him with concern in her red-rimmed eyes. She had brought him a croissant from the hospital cafeteria _._ Even though he hadn’t even thought of food since lunchtime the day before and Oliver doubted he would ever be hungry again, he knew he could deny her nothing. Especially right now.

 

He accepted the offering with a brittle grin. “Thank you.”

 

It had been a slow and enduring night. What time it was exactly, Oliver didn’t know for sure. But the staff milling outside the _terapia intensive_ , ICU, had switched over from the late shift and the coffee at the nurse’s station had long grown cold. Early on a doctor had explained the battery of tests they’d ordered on Elio, but most results hadn’t been expected until morning. They currently were struggling to regulate Elio’s dangerously elevated temperature and while the pathogen attacking his system remained unknown there were no visitors allowed. Thus, he and the Perlmans had been relegated to the cold plastic chairs of the waiting room.

 

Measles. Malaria. Hepatitis. With the flu-like symptoms and rapid, acute onset, the doctors had presented a list of possible infectious diseases that mimicked Elio’s presentation. While they tested for those and everything else under the sun, a broad-spectrum antibiotic had been started intravenously for Elio, while Oliver and the Perlmans, after a brief assessment, received purely preventative inoculations of a weaker strain.

 

Annella took her seat in the chair beside where the Professor had dozed off with his chin propped in hand. “I may not be _your_ mother, but it’s still my job to nag.”

 

Under her watchful gaze, Oliver picked disinterestedly at his breakfast and smiled wanly. The last thing he needed in that moment was a reminder, however well-intended, of his parents.

 

If Annella really was a mind reader, as Oliver often believed she was, then she interpreted his reluctance and stubbornly ignored it. “Which one do you look the most like?” She asked, her hands fidgeting in her lap; they were not allowed to smoke in the hospital. “Your mother or your father?”

 

Swallowing dryly, Oliver replied, “My father.”

 

“Ah,” Annella hummed as if he were confirming something she’d long suspected. “Everyone always says Elio most resembles me – he’s got that  _Parisian_ look to him, you know. But I for one was never thin as a rail like that boy is, I don’t know where he gets _that_ …” she trailed off, shaking her head, and her eyes grew distant and misty.

 

Oliver felt the tightness grow in his own throat. How easy it would be to break down now – to surrender to the gnawing fear in his gut and just collapse to the floor in despair. But Oliver kept thinking of Elio, and how distressed he would be to see one of his parents distraught like this, so he reached out and covered Annella’s hand with his own.

 

She looked down at his gesture and blinked away the tears. “Whom do you take after?”

 

Oliver blinked. “Pardon me?”

 

“Your parents,” Annella smiled at him patiently, and then rephrased. “Which of them are you the most like?”

 

This again. Oliver tried to mask a wince of discomfort by rubbing tired eyes. The immediate answer to that question was _Neither_ , followed quickly by, _I fucking hope_. He grappled with finding common ground between what she would want to hear and some kind of truth.

 

In the end it didn’t matter - Annella read into his silence what he needed her to and changed course. “No – _il cauboi_. I bet you are your own person. Just like me.” She told him warmly. “At your age, I think I would have _died_ if someone told me I was anything like my parents.”

 

Relieved, he hoped that the smile he gave her reached his eyes. How to tell this sweet, compassionate woman that she bore absolutely no resemblance to his own mother in neither mind, body, nor spirit? That Samuel’s open and generous heart could not have been farther from the closed-off, intolerant shell of his father’s?

 

That disgust and condemnation would be all that awaited him if and when his family ever learned of his relationship with her son?

 

The gentle squeeze of Annella’s hand in his brought him back. “Oliver,” she began carefully as she studied his face. “As parents, we do the best we can with the tools we were given. And sometimes, if we’re lucky, we try to do a little better than _our_ parents did.”

 

Oliver stared at his shoes and nodded.

 

Another light squeeze of his hand. “But that doesn’t mean that we get it right all the time,” she said, and then more softly, “and some of us never do.”

 

Eyes burning furiously, Oliver sniffed. He was grateful when she finally did release his hand, as he needed both to scrub at his face before one stray tear, a culmination of exhaustion and a lifetime of heartache, had the chance to fall. He couldn’t help but chuckle deliriously, despite himself and the situation, as all the potent emotions of the last forty-eight hours reared their ugly heads. He looked around fervently, desperate for a diversion.

 

“Speak for yourself,” came a groggy voice, nearly forgotten beside them. Samuel was smirking drowsily around a jaw-cracking yawn.

 

Oliver’s snicker grew to a laugh he struggled to smother as Annella rolled her eyes and leaned over to swat her husband with her purse. She called him something entirely unladylike in Italian and the Professor joined in with his trademark giggle.

 

“ _Signore e signora Perlman?”_

They all sobered immediately when a man with a white lab coat and a clipboard approached them cautiously – which was understandable, as they must have looked insane. Within seconds they were all on their feet. From his peripheral view Oliver realized that the Perlmans’ hopeful expressions must have mirrored his own.

 

“ _Sono il dottor Moretti. Al momento, è in condizioni stabili…”_

 

“ _Ah,_ _scusi_.” Samuel spoke up. “ _Se possibile, puoi parlare inglese, per favore_?” He nodded politely in Oliver’s direction. _Could you please speak in English?_

Grateful beyond words, Oliver swallowed the lump that had appeared in his throat. He shot the Professor an appreciative look.

 

 _Christ_ , this family’s constant consideration for him, today of all days, was going to be his undoing.

 

The Doctor kindly proceeded to switch effortlessly into heavily accented English. Oliver listened intently, but after absorbing the first few sentences the conversation seemed to fade into background noise; the pounding of his heart drowned out the rest of the words.

 

Elio had meningitis.

 

It was likely he had contracted it somehow while he’d visited the university campus, where minor epidemics of that nature tended to occur. The results of a spinal tap (Oliver shuddered at the thought) confirmed it was the bacterial form, which, unfortunately, tended to be far more harmful than viral. The only silver lining was the hospital’s protocol to treat immediately with empiric antibiotics before a definite diagnosis had been the right call to make; it meant that Elio was already receiving the medicine he needed to make him better.

 

“You said that the bacterial form is more harmful. Harmful in what way?”

 

That was Samuel’s tentative voice. Oliver snapped back to attention.

 

“A viral infection tends to run its course like a bad case of the flu – there is no medication it responds to, it clears up on its own within a matter of days. With the bacterial form we can treat it with antibiotics, however the meningococcal disease is very devastating to the body. It attacks the lining between the brain and the skull, which causes dangerous swelling. Now, it was caught early, and we have him on a very strong course of treatment. Both those factors usually lead to a good prognosis. The main concern is Elio’s low level of consciousness. The longer there is evidence of increased cranial pressure, the higher the chance of complications.”

 

It felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. Devastating. Dangerous swelling. Cranial pressure. _Elio_.

 

The Professor looked stricken by the answer to his question. He stood to the side, deflated into a rare disquiet.

 

Annella, fortunately or unfortunately, was brave enough to ask, “Complications?”

 

The Doctor nodded, expression grim. “The bacteria in the spinal fluid gets circulated and spreads the infection through the central nervous system. In very severe cases this can cause sepsis, leading to tissue damage and sometimes loss of limb,” he hurried to continue, “which, fortunately, I don’t see any evidence of in this case. But the brain swelling has me worried. A small percentage of patients will suffer from a wide range of neurological impairments…issues with memory, vision, hearing, motor control.”

 

Oliver’s legs would no longer hold his weight. He sank gracelessly into the chair at his back. “How small a percentage?”

 

“About twenty-five percent.”

 

He swallowed compulsively and tried to keep breathing. There was an irrational urge to get up and run, to flee, to get as far away from this nightmare as fast as possible – but nothing was chasing him, and running wasn’t going to leave behind this _feeling_ in his chest.

 

He cursed the inquiring academic within in him that currently had control over his brain. “And mortality rate?” He heard himself ask, and thought, _No, don’t tell me, don’t you dare tell me, I don’t want to know…_

The Doctor met his gaze with sympathy. “About the same.”

 

That could have been it – it would have been enough to push him over the edge into a despair too deep to crawl back out from. It very nearly was for the Perlmans’, whom Oliver dimly registered somewhere to his right, clinging to one another for comfort. And it would have been for him too, if not for the little voice at the back of his mind that chose that moment to speak up.

 

It was a voice that reminded him he’d walked away from Elio once before, and there was no way he could survive it a second time.

 

 *

 

While Elio was to remain in the ICU there was a strict ‘immediate family only’ visitors policy in place. Samuel and Annella had even gone so far as to convince the nurses that Oliver was a very dear cousin visiting from America, but to no avail. Of course, he didn’t hold it against them when they leapt at the first opportunity to disappear beyond those double doors where he wasn’t permitted. But it didn’t make staying behind feel any less like open-heart surgery with no anesthetic.

 

Mafalda arrived at some point and brought him a clean shirt to change into with a maternal cluck of her tongue. When she hugged him it took every shred of restraint he had not to dissolve into tears.

 

It was close to evening on that first day when one of them finally emerged – Samuel, pale and alone with a heart-wrenchingly lost look in his eyes.

 

Oliver surged to his feet. “Is he…?” he began, and didn’t know how to finish. Samuel’s face told him all that he needed to know. It had only been twenty-four hours, but obviously, there was no change. “How does he look?” he settled on instead.

 

The Professor gave him a watery smile. “Very small.”

 

Time passed in strange intervals in a hospital; there were moments when Oliver was convinced that every clock in the ward was broken. An infinity would seem to pass – hours that he filled with pacing, gnawing his fingernails, and gulping down infinite cups of terrible coffee – until he’d step outside the ambulance bay to sneak a cigarette and discover a bright and sunny day where he’d expected night.

 

He actually spent very little time alone. At any given moment the waiting room seemed to maintain a revolving door of Perlman extended family and friends. Aunts fussed over him and brought him food he didn’t want to eat. The younger cousins tried to cheer him up with their blissfully unaware dimpled grins. Marzia and Chiara even visited, and though initially awkward, it was a welcome distraction. Oliver suspected the constant parade of company was in part a plan put in place by Samuel and Annella to keep him sane.

 

They updated him only as frequently as they were able to tear themselves away, which never seemed to be often enough. Oliver couldn’t blame either of them in the slightest; each time they emerged they seemed more drained than the time before, and the news was never of more than a slight improvement _._

_They think the risk for seizures has passed. His blood pressure seems to be stabilizing. They’re going to start a steroid treatment tomorrow._

Oliver could count on one hand the number of times he’d actually left the hospital. When either Annella or Samuel – never both – would drive themselves home for a shower and a few hours of sleep in a real bed they would fight tooth and nail to drag him away with them. Regrettably, there were a few instances when he didn’t have the energy to refuse.

 

On the eve of the fifth day, Samuel gently shook him from a doze and insisted that he go home for the night. “You’re dead on your feet; I’ve called Anchise to come collect you. You need a hot meal and some rest.” His eyes were crinkled with warmth but it was clearly not just a suggestion.

 

That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try. “I’m fine really, I – ”

 

“You’re not ‘fine’. None of us are _fine_ ,” Samuel said bluntly, and the hand he’d left on Oliver’s shoulder tightened fractionally. “But I won’t let you run yourself to the ground like this. Not when you’re the first thing my son is going to want to see when he opens his eyes.”

 

Oliver latched onto the unwavering faith in the Professor’s voice like a lifeboat in a riptide. “Okay,” he found himself nodding.

 

“Good boy.” He helped him to his feet.

 

Back at the villa, Oliver collapsed onto the freshly washed sheets of Elio’s old bed and buried his face into the pillow. He felt the rise of sobs long held a bay steal the breath from his lungs and he shook with the force of it, but somehow tears still did not come.

 

He assumed that out of sheer physical and emotional exhaustion there just wasn’t the stamina left in his body to so much as cry. But a dark, despondent part of him wondered if perhaps his weary heart was saving the real anguish for a moment much bleaker, much more unbearable, than this one.

 

When Oliver arrived at the entrance to the ICU the next morning somewhat rested, fed, and in clean clothes, he admittedly felt a little better – until Annella saw him walking across the waiting room and practically ran to meet him.

 

His stomach instantly plummeted. “What? What is it, is it Elio? Is he…?”

 

“ _Amore_ ,” she reached out to stroke his cheek. “The swelling in his brain improved a lot overnight – they think the infection is clearing. He’s been moved down to a regular room.” The elation in her smile could not be contained, and it broke through the shadows in her eyes.

 

Oliver felt his heart stutter-stop. “Really? He…” He couldn’t find the words.

 

“ _Si_ , really. He’s starting to show signs of waking up soon.”

 

It was like seeing that first glimpse of light after being trapped in a dark room for too long: the relief was so overwhelming he needed time to adjust to even the mere idea. She gracefully allowed him that moment of reprieve, standing by as his silent sentinel while he relearned how to breathe.

 

But then, “I can take you to see him, if you like?”

 

Somehow, Oliver managed to contain the burst of hysteria that threatened to spill out of him, but he couldn’t hide the grin that nearly split his face open. “Yeah - yes. Yes, please.” He nodded so fast his neck muscles objected. “I’d like that very much.”

 

It had to be the understatement of the century.

 

An elevator ride and a long walk down a quiet corridor later, Annella stopped him at an open doorway; he’d been following so eagerly that he nearly ran her over. “Is this…?” he tried to peer around her, but for a petite woman she was doing an impressive job of barring his way.

 

Inside, Oliver could hear the familiar singsong cadence of the Professor’s voice talking quietly to someone. His heart started beating double-time in anticipation.

 

“Yes,” Annella confirmed, and then reached out to rub his arm. “Just be ready, _caro_. Remember, it will take time – he’s improving.”

 

By this point Oliver was barely paying attention – he was too focused on listening to the Professor’s muffled words, straining to catch even the barest hint of a reply from the one person he wanted to hear most. He must have nodded at her, because eventually she let him pass and he rounded the corner into the room.

 

Samuel was sitting at a chair that had been pulled up to the bed. He had one of Elio’s hands clasped tenderly in both of his as he stared in complete reverence. His head turned only briefly to smile when Oliver entered the room before returning frontward once more – as if it were painstaking to even glance away. “Oliver,” he greeted warmly, “I was just talking about you.”

 

Immediately, Oliver wished he had heeded Annella’s warning – because he _wasn’t_ ready. Not for this.

 

Elio lay motionless in the hospital bed. There were several lines connected to his body, some leading to an IV pole from which various fluid bags hung and others to sensors and monitoring equipment Oliver couldn’t even begin to identify. There was an oxygen cannula under his nose. The Professor’s remark from a few days ago – that he looked 'small' – was putting it mildly; Elio had never appeared frailer. His always-prominent cheekbones were now hollowed and gaunt, casting shadows on his ashen skin. His dark hair was a shock of jet black where it was matted down and plastered to his colorless face. He looked as if he’d been hospitalized for five weeks instead of just five days.

 

Oliver was powerless to tear his eyes away no matter how badly a part of him wanted to.

 

In his heart he of course _knew_ this figure in the bed to be Elio – but his head was in complete and utter denial. Because this didn’t look anything like _his_ Elio. And yet, as always, even in this way he was still hauntingly beautiful.

 

He must have looked like he was going to faint – it certainly felt like that was a possibility – because Samuel vacated his chair. “Here – sit.” He insisted.

 

Oliver sat. He leaned forward and picked up the hand that had just been placed gently back down on the mattress. He stared, mesmerized at how it was dwarfed by his own. Had it always been so extraordinarily small, so fragile, in comparison?

 

Through it all, Elio’s features remained utterly still. His eyes never opened.

 

“You said you were talking to him?” He rasped, turning stinging, hopeful eyes to the Professor.

 

“Yes. The doctor said he’s showing signs of responding to outside stimuli. They think it will help to bring him around.”

 

Oliver nodded his understanding, burying disappointment. “Does he…has he ever responded?”

 

The Perlmans gave him matching expressions of patient empathy. They were looks that spoke of countless hours sitting vigil at their son’s bedside with nothing to do but hope and wait – a dangerous combination. Oliver was just late to the party.

 

“Not yet, no.” Samuel said apologetically, then quirked his head to the side. “He did mumble a bit in his sleep early this morning. But nothing terribly coherent, I’m afraid.”

 

Oliver stared at the hand in his. He looped his index finger all the way around the tiny wrist and pressed it to the pulse point just to feel it beating under his skin. “What did he say?” he asked.

 

Samuel shrugged. “Just his own name, oddly enough.”

 

His head jerked up. “He said _Elio_?”

 

“Yes,” Annella confirmed softly, gazing at him with that quiet perceptive look of hers. “A few times.”

 

Oliver smiled his first real smile in days.

 

*

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eternal gratitude to everyone for reading - extra-good karma for those who leave kudos and comments :)


	6. Oliver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't hate me for this - there's a plan, okay? 
> 
> Read on, dear friends :)

 

The day slipped by at a glacial pace.

 

Dr. Moretti made a few appearances. He checked vitals and gave Elio various pokes and prods, watching critically for any kind of response. Mostly Elio would give a weak flinch or shy away – once he let out a small, annoyed grunt. It looked so normal, so eerily like all the times Oliver had tried to awaken him for an early morning jog or swim to be met with a scowl and demand for a few more minutes of sleep.

 

If he weren’t watching each attempt from the edge of his seat, breath caught hopefully in his lungs, Oliver would have found it amusing.

 

The Doctor would take notes and issue them encouraging smiles. “These are all good signs. He’ll wake up in his own time.”

 

Oliver, who would never dream of rushing Elio into anything a second earlier than he was ready, was about to beg him to hurry the hell up.

 

Outside the single window of the private room the sun was beginning to dip below a skyline of brick, columns, and steeples. Oliver rose from the chair he’d been immobilized in for hours, joints popping and cracking, and suddenly felt ten years older. He shuffled across the room to watch the last of the waning light.

 

“…Oliver?”

 

When he turned his instinctual reaction was to look immediately at the bed.

 

The monitors continued their steady drone, the thin chest rose and fell, and still Elio remained the same.

 

Chagrinned, Oliver glanced across the room and found Annella watching him kindly. He gathered from her expression that she’d asked him a question, but he couldn’t even begin to guess how to respond. He shot her an apologetic look.

 

She just smiled. “I asked if you’d like to come get something to eat?”

 

“No, you two go ahead,” Voice rusty from disuse, Oliver gave his best charming grin – the kind that used to make her call him _la muvistar_ and shake her head in fondness. Now it felt brittle and artificial at best. “I’m not very hungry.”

 

She dropped the hand that had been hanging on the doorway. “Samuel went home for a rest, sweetheart.” Her eyes narrowed in concern as she crossed back into the room to look at him closer. “Where did you go?”

 

Oliver ducked his head. He knew very well that she wasn’t asking it literally.

 

Annella’s gaze faded from gauging to thoughtful as she studied him. “This is all very difficult for you,” she stated softly.

 

He blinked – entirely unsure how to respond. Even though he knew she didn’t intend it to be condescending, Oliver had to hold back a scoff of derision. After all, he wasn’t the parent faced with the pitiless reality of losing their only child. He certainly wasn’t the acutely ill one with an undefined recovery still yet to be determined. He didn’t even qualify as a concerned lover…loved one…friend?

 

It was beginning to dawn on Oliver that he still didn’t know how he fit into this equation at all – only that his entire life and one chance at happiness was lying in that hospital bed and he couldn’t _move_ until he knew that Elio was going to be alright.

 

So whatever that made him, that’s what Oliver was. But it certainly wasn’t possible to measure his pain against anyone else’s.

 

“I’ll be okay when I know _he’s_ okay.” As watered-down and condensed as it was, it was the only way he knew how to put it.

 

Annella drifted to the bed and reached out a hand. With a feather-light touch she stroked the backs of her fingers across Elio’s pale cheek. “And if he’s not?”

 

His mouth went dry. “I…I’m not sure there’s a way to answer that.”

 

She nodded slowly, knowingly. “Will you continue to punish yourself forever?” Her eyes remained fixed on her son’s passive face.

 

“Punish?” Oliver blinked, blindsided. “I’m not punishing myself…”

 

“What would you call it, then? You won’t sleep, won’t eat, you rarely speak.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest, leveling him with her best _Don’t bullshit me_ glare. “You know you can’t go on like this. Elio will need you to be strong, if he…” she trailed off. They both knew there were too many painful ways for that sentence to end.

 

“I will be here for him. I won’t let him down,” he swore to her. _Not again._

Annella sighed. “That’s not what I meant.” She paused then, considering, and took a deep breath. “Where Elio is concerned, I know that you carry around a lot of guilt. And maybe a little blame.” She ducked her head, fighting to meet his gaze.

 

Oliver stared at the floor.

 

“But _this_ …Oliver, there is absolutely nothing to blame yourself for.”

 

Finally, he willed himself to look at her. “Isn’t there?”

 

She was staring at him as if they’d never met.

 

He wanted to turn his back so that she wouldn’t see his face when he said what was coming next, but his feet were rooted in place; he couldn’t turn away from Elio. “It should be me in that bed. Not him.”

 

“Oliver, don’t ever say that…” she began to scold.

 

“Why not? He is – he’s everything that’s good, and bright, and sweet in this world. If there were any justice in the universe I’d be the one who got sick instead of him.” He had to pause to take a breath as the words punched their way out of him from somewhere deep inside. “He doesn’t deserve any of this.” He raked a hand roughly through his hair.

 

“Darling, no one does.”

 

“No,” Oliver shook his head, caught somewhere between ready to retreat and yet too far-gone to turn back. “Sometimes people deserve to pay for the things they do – _I_ deserve to pay. Not Elio – _never_ Elio. Elio is brave, and remarkable and _pure_ – and I didn’t respect that enough then to protect that part of him. I told him – I didn’t want _him_ to pay for it and still he got hurt, and he keeps getting hurt over and over again because I’m not strong enough to stay away from him.”

 

Annella grabbed one of his hands and jerked it. “Oliver! You must stop this.”

 

The words had tumbled out of him with such sudden and aching force that he slumped, exhausted in the aftermath, leaning against the bedrail.

 

“I do not believe for a second that anything you’ve ever done was meant to hurt my son.” She said slowly and steadily. “Do you think we didn’t see how willfully you tried to distance yourself from him last summer? Even though it clearly just made you both miserable…”

 

“It was in vain,” Oliver reminded her, brokenly.

 

Her mouth twitched into a hint of a smile. “Yes, I know. But that’s Elio – stubborn when he wants to be and too smart for his own good. It usually results in him getting his way.”

 

He couldn’t help but smirk.

 

“I don’t want to ever think about you wishing ill upon yourself like this.” She reached up and stroked back a lock of his hair, her nails scratching gently at his scalp. It was a reaction so loving, so instinctually nurturing, that Oliver had to fight back a sob. “Do you know how grateful Sam and I are to have met you? To have you in our lives?”

 

Oliver braved himself to look at her – but there was no challenge in her expression, no trick to be played. What he saw there in her dark eyes was so beautifully honest, so alike Elio’s luminous hazel, that he was too overcome to respond.

 

“Elio has changed so much in the short time he’s known you. He’s more confident, more self-aware. He’s at peace with his place in the world. Sammy and I worry less about how he’ll choose to live his life and whether or not he’ll allow himself to have the things he needs to be happy.” She squeezed his hand and smiled. “Oliver, you changed Elio in the best possible way – you showed him what every parent hopes and dreams that their child will get to experience at some point in their life.”

 

Although she didn’t say the actual word, it hung heavily in the air between them. Oliver was partly disappointed, but mostly glad – because to say it now would be insincere in some way; more than he’d primed for and yet somehow so very _not enough_.

 

“And for him to find it with someone so selfless…someone willing to walk away if it meant making the best possible choice for that moment. Haven’t you paid enough?” She shook her head ruefully. “How can you say that you’re not just as brave, just as deserving, as Elio?”

 

He didn’t have an answer for her. Years of suppressing his true thoughts, desires, and feelings combined with a lifetime of thinking that what he did would never be good enough couldn’t be wiped away by one summer of self-discovery. Not by her and the Professor’s shockingly generous reassurances. Not even by the adoration and unwavering trust in Elio’s gaze as he’d stared up at him in the empty streets Bergamo.

 

Annella didn’t seem bothered by his silence. With a final squeeze of his hand, she let it go, placing it palm-side down on the bed. “You know, the first person who’d tell you not to blame yourself – for any of this – would be Elio,” she looked longingly at the figure on the bed, “maybe you should try talking to him about it.”

 

Oliver hadn’t spoken aloud to Elio’s inert form yet. He told himself that it was because the Perlmans were always in the room, but really, it was because he didn’t know what to say. Not even where to begin.

 

But for her, he nodded.

 

Her smile brightened. “I’ll bring you back a sandwich.”

 

There was no point in arguing with her, so Oliver didn’t bother to try. “…Thank you. And an espresso, if you wouldn’t mind?”

 

She paused at the door and shot him a disapproving frown. “Tea.” She negotiated, pointing an accusatory finger in his direction.

 

“Deal,” Oliver chuckled.

 

Annella blew two kisses and left.

 

The quiet and abrupt emptiness of the room was unsettling. Oliver blew out a deep breath and looked longingly at the silent figure on the bed. How he ached to bow down over Elio’s body and bury his head in his stomach, to find comfort in the elegant hands tangled in his hair even if he had to place them there himself. But he was too afraid to pull or crimp one of the vital lines that were bringing infinitely necessary aid, so he stoically refrained.

 

He settled instead for sitting in the ever-present bedside chair, pulling it as close as he dared until he could rest his elbows on the mattress. Gently, he cradled Elio’s palm against his own.

 

Silence. Oliver waited a beat, and snorted at his own hesitation. “This is ridiculous,” he murmured, staring at the sheets. “I used to be able to tell you every random thought or idea that would so much as enter my head. This should be easy, actually – you’re not in any shape to offer a smart-aleck retort.” His eyes flicked hopefully to the bed.

 

Nothing - not so much as a twitch of the lips.

 

“Okay, that wasn’t entirely fair.” Oliver sighed. “Your mom wants me to sit here and spill my heart to you. I’m not sure which one of us she thinks it would be more beneficial for. My money’s on you, because I’ve had the last twelve months alone with all these thoughts and apparently I’m no better for it.

 

“I keep thinking about that day – that first day after we…well, you know. When you rode into town to meet me I don’t think I’d ever been more happy to see someone in my life, especially after how you’d looked at me that morning. I can still picture your face perfectly. The hollow smile you gave me. The distance in your eyes. And I swear, that _look_ …it was like I’d taken something from you.” He stared sightlessly and shook his head, incredulous at his own vivid memory. “I think some small part of me is always going to feel _responsible_. For what specifically, I’m not exactly sure. Because I know I’d do it all again the exact same way if it meant that I’d get to spend even just a minute holding you in my arms.”

 

Oliver stopped himself. “Well, maybe not _exactly_ the same way,” he shook his head, smirking. “I don’t know about you, but I could have done without some of the snide comments and petty silences. And maybe that thing over Chiara on our ride to Lake Garda…” Out of habit, his gaze flicked expectantly to the head of the bed, and his words ground to a halt.

 

A pair of sharp emerald eyes blinked back at him.

 

“Oh my God,” Oliver breathed. For a moment he was sure that the days of little sleep were catching up to him; he had to be hallucinating. But then the fingers he held loosely in his grasp twitched and closed lightly around his own.

 

Elio blinked at him again and then briefly around the room.

 

“You’re – it’s okay. Jesus, I can’t believe you’re awake.” He scrambled upright in his chair. The joy and excitement that spilled out of him was impossible to contain; he couldn’t sit still. “How are you? Are you okay? Fuck, that’s stupid. Of course, you’re – but how are you feeling? How do you feel?” He had to force himself to slow down before he vibrated out of his own skin. It even took Herculean effort just not to squeeze the fragile hand too tightly.

 

Elio was staring intently at his lips. After a moment or two he weakly cleared his throat, grimacing.

 

 _Jesus, Oliver. Get it together._ “Sorry. I’ll call the nurse, see if you can have some water.” He needed to take it back a few steps. Start with the basics. The kid had to be confused and scared shitless to wake up to a world seemingly turned upside down. “Uh, your mom just went down to the cafeteria, but she’ll be back soon. You’re in the hospital in Crema. I’m not sure if you remember, but you got sick. But I don’t want you to worry – you’re doing a lot better.” He pressed the call button with shaking fingers.

 

There was something in Elio’s gaze that troubled him; it was apprehension that went a little beyond regular confusion and bordered closely on alarm.

 

For Oliver, it was a fundamental need to make it go away by any means possible. “Everything is going to be okay,” he soothed, voice lowered to a near whisper.

 

“Oliver,” Elio rasped weakly. “I…” A line of distress appeared on the bridge of his nose and he abruptly stopped talking.

 

No sound had ever been more beautiful.

 

Hearing his own name on those perfect bow-shaped lips was the beacon of light Oliver hadn’t realized he’d been desperately searching for. Relief flowed through his veins like a stream thawing from a long winter – sluggishly at first, and then faster, faster…

 

It would be alright now. Elio could see, Elio recognized him, Elio spoke. One after the other, all of his deepest fears were put swiftly to rest.

 

A lump of emotion lodged itself in his throat, so large that it was difficult to speak around. “I doubt that you were aware for the little speech I gave a minute ago, but when I said I’d never been so happy to see someone in my life – that day in the square? This moment beats that one tenfold.” The smile that felt like it was going to split his face clashed with his voice that came out as little more than a gravelly croak.

 

Elio just stared at him, wide-eyed.

 

Oliver laughed at himself. “Alright, I know I don’t _sound_ happy, but I…” His voice trailed off, his grin faded.

 

No. It couldn’t be – not that. But the same troubling feeling in the pit of his stomach took the shape of something dreadful that began to claw at his insides.

 

“Elio,” Voice wavering, Oliver swallowed back bile and stroked the peaks and valleys of the pale knuckles with the pad of his thumb. He fought for the courage to try asking again – and to do it calmly. “Elio, can you not…” he gestured with his other hand to his own ears.

 

_Hear me?_

The clock on the wall ticked. The oxygen cannula hissed. A nurse's footsteps approached from down the hall. But as Oliver waited he could barely hear more than the hammer of his own panicking heart.

 

Elio swallowed with an audible click. “No,” he near-whispered, just as the first tear rolled down his cheek.

 

 *

 

It was late when Oliver found himself wandering listlessly down to the lobby - so late that the hospital entrance seemed all but abandoned. Only a handful of weary faces wandered the halls, and one janitor with a mop and bucket.

 

Oliver found himself standing in front of a row of pay phones with no memory of how he got there. As if on its own accord, his hand drifted to his pocket where he picked through some change, held the handset to his ear, and dialed a well-known, long-distance number.

 

He waited, listening to the series of rings on the other end as an internal war waged in his head: _Please pick up. Don’t pick up._

The sound of the coin dropping as the ringing abruptly stopped decided his fate. “Hello?”

 

“…Hi,” Oliver began hesitantly, and cleared his throat. “It’s me, Casey.”

 

“Oliver?” He heard her pause, imagined her turning her wrist over to look at her watch. “Aren’t you still in Italy? Jeez, it’s got to be well after midnight over there.”

 

He closed his eyes. “Yes, I guess it is.”

 

Another pause. “Are you alright? Did something happen?” There was panic in her voice.

 

“No. No, it’s not…” Shame crept like a heavy cloak across his shoulders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know who else - I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. This… _I’m_ not your problem anymore. I’m gonna go – ”

 

“Oliver, you’re the one who called me. Don’t you dare hang up!” She blew out a breath of exasperation that rattled with static through the phone. “And don’t give me any of that _not my problem_ bullshit. I’ve known you…Jesus, I don’t know - a really long time. Don’t you think that after all we’ve been through that we owe each other more than that?”

 

He did – he always had. He just hadn’t realized that it went both ways. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, pressing the receiver tighter to his ear.

 

She sighed. “Don’t be.” Her voice softened. “Are you really okay?”

 

“I’m fine.”

 

Casey gave one of her trademark snorts, but he knew it only hid her mounting concern. “Clearly. Ol, tell me what’s wrong?” Then, quieter, “Is it Elio?”

 

He was so grateful that he didn’t even have time to be surprised that she remembered his name – because in that moment he didn’t trust himself to speak it. “Yes,” said Oliver. “He’s sick – really sick. He’s been in the hospital here for nearly a week. We weren’t even sure if he was going to pull through.” When his hands started shaking he had to use both to keep the phone steady.

 

“Oh, my god! Oliver, that’s horrible.” The sadness in Casey’s voice wasn’t just the polite sympathy of an old friend; he could hear the real distress in her tone. “I’m so sorry. Is he…but he is? Going to pull through?”

 

Oliver sagged against the booth like a puppet with its strings cut. “Yes.” He breathed, and then fought lightheadedness as his heart clenched painfully with a sudden wave of grief. “But I’m terrified he’s going to wish he hadn’t.” The words nearly choked him.

 

On the other end of the line he registered the alarm in Casey's voice as she begged for more information, an explanation. It took several deep and painful breaths before he was able to speak again.

 

“It’s the craziest thing…but I can’t get this one God damn song out of my head. It came out last year and was number one on the hit parade for what had to be weeks. _Every Breath You Take_. Do you know it? It’s by Sting, or that band, um…”

 

“The Police,” Casey quietly supplied.

 

“Right, The Police. I swear, you couldn’t get away from that song last summer. It was everywhere. It drove Elio crazy – he’d change the station every time it came on. He said it was unoriginal - just ‘a major chord followed by a relative minor’, which is apparently the basis of every pop song these days. And aside from that one guitar lick, the middle of the song is literally just a single key hammered on the piano, over and _over_ again. Did you ever notice that before?”

 

 “No,” she replied softly. “I didn’t.”

 

Oliver rested his head against the cool metal of the payphone. “Yeah, me neither. I swear Elio sees the world differently than the rest of us, sometimes.” _Sees_ , he heard himself say, and cringed. When his vision began to blur with tears he plowed ahead. “You know, most people think it’s a love song. I know _I_ did. But Elio told me Sting apparently wrote it while he was separating from his wife. It’s about _unrequited_ love. You see, the song has the standard structure of a pop ballad, but there’s no harmonic development after the middle eight, no release of emotions or change in the point of view. The protagonist is just trapped in his circular obsessions. He can never move on.

 

“But I can’t stop thinking about this one night from last summer, when we’d been out long enough to watch the sun come up. That song started playing from an open window out on the street, and for once Elio just stopped and listened to it. And he wanted to dance - with me. We’d gone to the disco in town a few times with friends and we’d never…of course, we couldn’t dance _together._ Not like that. I was always so worried about where we were, or who might see.” He took a shuddering breath in. “And now that damn song keeps playing in my head and you know, even after all those things he’d told me – I’ve got to say, I don’t really see what’s so bad about it.”

 

A wistful sigh shattered his reverie. “Oh, Oliver…”

 

The words were beginning to choke him. “Wanting to be with him in spite of what may or may not be good for him, I thought _that_ was selfish.” A sob broke free before he could smother it. “But Elio may never even _hear_ music again and here I am wishing…damn it, why didn't I just dance with him?”

 

He felt the first tear scald his cheek, then another. The anguish he’d kept carefully buried for days rose in a wave and finally broke, cresting over him with a strength that made him bend at the waist, gasping for breath.

 

There, in the relative safety of a hospital corner and Casey’s quiet allegiance on the other end of the phone, Oliver finally let himself cry. Up until that point he’d been telling himself that he only needed to hold it together right up until the point that Elio turned a corner; he’d wait to break down once they knew he’d make it.

 

As it turned out, he’d been saving his tears for a feeling much more overwhelming than relief.

 

 *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's aaaaaall gonna be ok. Eventually.
> 
> BTW, I don't have anything against that Police song whatsoever. I actually quite enjoy it. Everything I had Oliver say about it was more or less said at one time by Sting himself - he's not really a fan. Go figure.
> 
> Thank you for reading!! I hope you're all still with me :)


	7. Oliver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everybody! This is a long one...it's the final chapter told from Oliver's point of view.
> 
> Please enjoy :)

 

The doctors reassured them that hearing loss after the severity of illness that Elio had faced was quite common – as if that could be reassuring.

 

Preliminary bedside tests indicated that Elio had deafness bilaterally – in both ears – and ranged somewhere on the scale of moderate to severe. The degree of impairment was measured by decibels and the range at which sounds could no longer be heard. Currently, that was somewhere between sixty and ninety decibels.

 

To Oliver that meant nothing.

 

But what it came down to was this: Elio couldn’t follow a conversation. A full range of frequencies at a low volume was needed in order to hear all the sounds and patterns of speech. Though he could hear a fairly wide range of high frequency sounds, most of the lower end was missing. With educated guesses and exhaustive focus he could understand pieces of a sentence or two spoken slowly and clearly in a quiet room. The moment background noise was introduced or the conversation involved multiple voices Elio was completely lost.

 

They were told that most cases of deafness following a serious bout of meningitis resolved themselves within forty-eight hours after the first signs of recovery. And so they waited. Elio slept on and off, stayed quiet and withdrawn, and got a little bit better. His hearing did not.

 

At that point it was suggested that he be transferred to a hospital in Milan – one with more advanced diagnostics, doctors specializing in complications from bacterial illness, and a renowned rehab program. The Perlmans spurred into action. Arrangements were planned, several phone calls were made, and suddenly Oliver and Elio were in a room together alone.

 

Elio had opened his eyes and looked at Oliver sitting in his customary chair with something akin to disbelief.

 

Having grown hyper-aware of every utterance, every motion, desperate to act as interpreter, Oliver leaned forward. He rubbed a gentle hand on Elio’s thigh through the blankets. “Oh-kay?” he enunciated exaggeratedly and clearly, eyebrows raised in question.

 

Elio’s lips opened and closed for a moment, hesitating. “My parents?”

 

A yellow legal pad and a felt pen had taken up residence on the table beside the hospital bed. _Gone to pack up house,_ Oliver scrawled, and held it up for him to see.

 

Elio's head fell back against the pillow and he stared at the ceiling.

 

Oliver watched a myriad of emotions play out across the wan face and felt his own gut clench anxiously. For him, leaving the villa meant venturing into unknown waters. He didn’t know a world with the Perlmans – with _Elio_ – that existed outside of the little bubble they’d created for themselves. It was sobering to realize that they’d leave behind sun-soaked mornings by the pool, late dinners curtained by olive trees, and the sanctuary of the twin beds. The thought both terrified and fascinated him.

 

For Elio, returning to Milan meant a summer break cut brutally short; an abrupt return to regular life, to reality, only one so unexpectedly twisted and cruel that it had to seem more like a bad dream.

 

From beneath dark lashes, Elio peered at him pensively. He hesitated, as he always seemed to do now before he had to speak. “Guess you’ll be leaving then.”

 

The legal pad lay uselessly on his lap. Oliver shook his head. “No.” The thought had never even entered his mind. But it was the genuine confusion in Elio’s eyes that made him wonder for the first time – _Do you want me to leave?_ He wrote it in big black letters across the lined paper.

 

He wondered how Elio would answer – if it were even fair to ask. He could no sooner walk out that door now than he could will his own heart to stop beating.

 

As Elio read it, his mouth drew into a tight line of sheer misery. His eyes became wet and impossibly wide as they darted from the words on the page to Oliver’s face. That same hesitation, and then he slowly but desperately shook his head.

 

Oliver leaned in closer just as the boy’s face crumpled. In silent solidarity he sat, clutching one bony hand tightly in his, as each of Elio’s hitched breaths sent stabs of pain through his chest.

 

Stopping his own heart may have been impossible, he conceded, but in that moment as he reeled from Elio’s pain it seemed just as hard to keep it going.

 

And so, they made the pilgrimage to Milan. The hour-long car ride following behind a silent ambulance was crammed with Samuel and Annella, several suitcases, and heavy silences. Outside the window the scenery changed in a dizzying blur from cornfields to skyscrapers. A distant part of Oliver knew that the _Dilettante_ in him should have been admiring architecture, pondering the rich history, the exhilaration of a new urbanity laying in wait.

 

He watched it go by with apathy. The bustling bodies in the crosswalk, the honking horns and the busy streets…it all just seemed like another New York; a place to get lost in and yet lose yourself at the same time, if you weren’t careful.

 

Speaking of getting lost, the _Ospedale Niguarda_ was probably the largest hospital Oliver had ever seen. The infinite number of buildings and vast grounds made it all seem even bigger than Central Park. With its glass elevators, immaculate gardens with carved stone fountains, café’s and convenience shops, it had more going for it than a small town of half its size.

 

While the overall grandness and lavish amenities did nothing to impress him, the actual medicine practice certainly did. Within hours of settling into a large, clean, contemporarily decorated room, Elio had already been evaluated by a new team of doctors and shuttled through a series of sophisticated testing procedures. Blood draws, CT and MRI’s were all ordered and carried out with swift efficiency – even a futuristic-looking brain wave test that Oliver was sure had been snatched right off the set of _Star Wars_.

 

He tried to tag along, where and when he could. He knew it was more for his own benefit than for Elio’s.

 

Elio, who had grown more and more taciturn and distant as the days of his recovery went by.

 

It was discovered during his first visit from the physiotherapy department that the damage from the meningitis extended to beyond his ability to hear; upon standing from the bed Elio had been assaulted by a fit of dizziness that would have sent him sprawling to the floor if Oliver hadn’t been there to catch him. Sitting upright for longer than ten minutes at a time caused headaches and nausea; his balance was off and walking in a straight line required intense concentration and assistance.  The attending neurologist had explained that the vertigo and hearing loss were likely related, stemming from damage done to the inner ear. What remained unknown was whether or not these issues were temporary or permanent.

 

The additional setback inevitably proved to be too much. What resolve Elio had held onto seemed to vanish. He showed little interest in any kind of social interaction – every time the pad of paper and pen came out he only looked tired and defeated. He ate little, spoke rarely, and sought to sleep more and more.

 

The doctors had tried to ease their concerns in a private conference room – Elio’s body was still recovering from a brutal trauma to its entire system. The balance of chemicals in his brain had been altered, his body’s defenses severely weakened. Even the antibiotics, their dosages extreme but essential in saving his life, would have done their own damage to his vital organs. In the wake of such an intense battle to stay alive, it was natural to want to shut down, take stock, and recuperate.

 

That was all fine and good, but it wasn’t the physical damage that worried Oliver the most. When he looked in Elio’s eyes he saw something beautiful and precious within was at risk of breaking, and if it did, there was no trauma team in the world that could stitch and tape it back together.

 

Three days into the stay at _Niguarda_ an audiologist called a meeting in Elio’s room armed with a whiteboard and a resolute expression. “Okay – here’s what we’re dealing with.”

 

Samuel and Annella flanked Elio on either side of his bed while Oliver leaned anxiously against the wall. It suddenly felt as though they were a courtroom awaiting a jury’s final verdict.

 

“Elio,” the Doctor began, attention trained unwaveringly on the patient in the bed, “if you don’t understand something I want you to tell me, and I’ll write it down. Okay?” They’d been told to use text as a last resort and encourage Elio to follow speech as best he could. At times it seemed cruel, but the intention was to improve his ability to match the limited sounds he could hear with the way words looked on someone’s lips.

 

It was spoken slowly, clearly, and loudly, and still Elio’s face reflected some level of uncertainty. Even so, he gave a timid nod.

 

“Good. Now, I think we’ve got some reason to be hopeful.”

 

It was like the start of a free-fall from the top of a rollercoaster – Oliver’s stomach jumped in anticipation.

 

“Why’s that?” The Professor asked, squeezing his son’s shoulder.

 

The Doctor stayed focused on Elio. “Because we’ve determined that even though your body has fought off most of the illness, there's still a slight inflammation of the meninges. Remember, that's the membrane that covers your brain and spinal chord. The swelling could be causing a disturbance in the way the ears transmit a signal from the auditory nerve to the brain. This sounds like a bad thing, but it could mean that there’s just some residual infection that will eventually go down.” He wrote several of the more technical terms and phrases on the board, pausing now and then to make sure Elio made the connection between the words he’d written and the spoken explanation.

 

“We were also able to detect some swelling in the labyrinth of your inner ear. There is an excess of fluid in the area of the semicircular canals, and that’s why your balance has also been affected. It’s a condition known as Labyrinthitis," he proceeded to sketch a rough diagram of a cross-section of the ear and pointed to it like a teacher before a sea of students. “And in your case it’s quite severe. Sometimes the Labyrnthitis causes the meningitis, sometimes it’s the other way around. Regardless, you've been on some pretty heavy-duty antibiotics and we'll need to keep you on them to clear up these ear infections. The hope here is that when all the inflammation goes down, the issues you’re having with your hearing and the vertigo will clear up as well. This could take time, and there is a possibility we may need to do a surgical procedure in the future to drain the excess fluid.”

 

There was a palpable sense of relief in the room.

 

Until the Doctor’s face hardened incrementally. “Now, that would be our best-case scenario. But I also need to make you aware of the other possibilities. Even if the swelling to the inner ear goes down, there’s a chance that during the illness the bacteria and toxins in your body did damage to the cochlea, or the nerve fibers, here,” he pointed to a portion of the drawing. “These fibres are required to detect different kinds of sounds and when they’re gone, they don’t come back. The damage would be permanent.”

 

Oliver’s stomach plummeted. The rollercoaster crested over the tallest peak and dropped in a never-ending dive. He waited for the inevitable crash against the unforgiving earth but it never seemed to come.

 

“But don’t lose heart. For now I’d say the news is good – your body still has a lot of recovering to do, and we’ll continue to watch the infections carefully so we’ll know if the medication is doing its job.” The Doctor fixed Elio with a comforting smile. “At that point we’ll know more about the future. There are lots of different options available to help you live a normal life. Okay?”

 

From the isolated distance of his spot across the room, Oliver studied the vacant look on Elio’s face. He chewed on his lip, worried and distraught. Elio looked so disoriented he mustn’t have understood a good half of what he’d just been told. But whether that were true or not – whether he’d pieced together the entire conversation or was utterly lost – he still asked the one question that had to be on everyone’s mind.

 

“How long?”

 

Oliver’s skin prickled. He hadn’t realized it until then, but it had been a long time since he’d last heard that voice say anything at all.

 

The Doctor looked hesitant to reply. “It's hard to say. We should have a better idea in about two weeks.”

 

It seemed at once both very soon and yet too far away.

 

Oliver wasn’t the only one left overwhelmed by the sudden influx of information. Samuel and Annella began asking questions at rapid-fire. The Doctor’s attention immediately shifted to the concerned parental units as he tried to answer each one with cautiously optimistic and patient phrasing. Suddenly, the once quiet room was filled with chatter. It was hard to hear himself think.

 

But if it were disorienting for _him_ , then he could only imagine how…

 

He looked to the bed.

 

Elio’s gaze was jumping uneasily between the three faces undoubtedly discussing him at length before he seemed to give up. With a look of dejection and abject misery, he slumped back against his pillows, head turned away and eyes closed, as if he could tune the world out.

 

With alarm, Oliver realized that he _could_ , and all too easily.

 

“Elio,” he called out even as he winced, shocked by his own stupidity. To add insult to injury: of all the voice frequencies he was familiar with, Elio had reluctantly admitted only days ago that Oliver’s was the hardest for him to hear.

 

Oliver approached the bed slowly. It was an unnerving realization, but it dawned on him then that with his eyes closed Elio was totally unaware of his surroundings – completely vulnerable. And with that knowledge he seemed even smaller than ever, nearly swallowed up in the too-large hospital bed. It was more than Oliver could take when that full lower lip started trembling.

 

Without a second thought, he sat down on the edge of the mattress.

 

The shift in weight caused the green eyes to fly open in alarm, thrown off by the sudden motion. Elio relaxed instantly when he saw Oliver. In that brief moment of relief, guard lowered, a million concealed emotions flickered across his pale face before the mask of composure could be replaced.

 

But Oliver saw.

 

He placed a hand on one of Elio’s thin forearms. There was so much to say, so many possible ways he wanted to convey that no matter what happened, Oliver would be there – to shelter, to protect, to care, to give up anything and take on everything – but until he learned a different way, his current resources were limited. Even so, he waited until he had Elio’s full attention and then he said, “It’s okay.”

 

It wasn’t, but it would be. Maybe not tomorrow, but it would be. Maybe not even in the next fateful two weeks. But it would be. So he repeated it.

 

Elio stared at his lips long after they’d stopped moving. When his eyes finally did lift he gave the most world-weary nod Oliver had ever seen. Whether he’d heard him or not, whether he’d read his lips or merely guessed, whether he’d even understood it at all...

 

Whether he believed him or not. It didn’t matter. That, too, was okay.

 

Elio had always been the braver one. Every truly beautiful thing they’d shared was because of the courage he’d had when Oliver hadn’t. Though there was no way to ever truly thank him, Oliver knew he could start by being brave enough for the both of them, for awhile.

 

 *

 

“Okay, that’s it…no, I’ve got the door, just keep coming. Watch the rug – watch it! Don’t trip, now. The corner of that rug is folded, can you fix it? Thank you, dear. Just be careful, boys.”

 

Oliver had to chew on the inside of his cheek to refrain from commenting. He focused instead on keeping his forearm at its ninety-degree angle, locked tightly against his side, where Elio was clenching it for balance. They continued their slow, deliberate journey across the foyer floor, easily avoiding the small piece of upturned carpet that wouldn’t hurt anyone even if it jumped up and bit them.

 

Undeniably, Elio’s early discharge from the hospital had them all a little on edge. But when his recovery had plateaued with the various rehab departments and he'd flat out refused any additional methods of therapy or patient support, they’d all decided it would be better for his mental health to have him home as soon as possible.

 

He could feel Elio’s ribcage heaving against his elbow and felt a burst of pride. Certainly, he was out of breath after such an excursion, but it was by far the longest one he’d faced since falling ill. If he could just make it ten more steps or so they’d be in the living room…

 

Samuel stepped around them. “Here, sit. Rest if you need to, Elio.” He patted the cushioned bench that sat against the corridor wall.

 

Elio gave a rebellious toss of his head.

 

“Elio, don’t exhaust yourself. There’s no harm in taking a break.” Speaking louder than probably necessary, Samuel bowed to meet his son’s lowered gaze, and slapped the seat more firmly.

 

Oliver opened his mouth to object – they were so close.

 

“Papa,” Elio protested, eyes flaring.

 

The Professor straightened, chagrinned. Annella placed a calming hand on his shoulder and he squared his expression, stepped back, and made a theatrical _after you_ gesture.

 

Oliver had immediately recognized the look on Samuel’s face – that feeling of warring with your own internal need, a fundamental _want_ to just go ahead and fix it; whatever it was, make it better. He himself fought with it nearly every minute of the day. But each time he gave in and let that feeling win, Elio seemed to get a little bit further away from him.

 

When they finally made it into the main room Oliver stopped at the nearest chair – a green and red striped wingback – and stayed close as Elio slowly lowered himself down into it with a grateful sigh. He raised his eyebrows in a silent, _You good?_

Elio nodded.

 

“I’ll get us all something cool to drink,” Annella offered, but lingered by his side with a soft, thoughtful stare. She couldn’t seem to resist reaching out a hand to card through the dark, unruly curls.

 

When Oliver checked, the Professor was wearing a near matching expression. Elio seemed to wilt under the weight of it.

 

He drew in a quick breath. “That would be great, Mrs. P.”

 

It succeeded in pulling her gaze to his, glaring good-naturedly, as she gave him a parting whack and left the room.

 

Samuel, dabbing sweat from his brow, crossed to the balcony doors and threw them open. The blare of car horns and squealing tires filled the room, along with a welcome flow of balmy evening air that quelled the staleness of a home left sealed for too long.

 

It was hot. Summers in Milan, apparently, were just as warm as in Crema, if not more so due to the exhaust and haze of a crowded, bustling capital. The Perlmans’ apartment was in the _Corso Magenta_ district of Milan, in the western part of the city center – right in the heart of the action. It couldn’t have been more opposite from the secluded majesty of their house in the Italian countryside if it were on the moon.

 

Oliver took a seat in the parallel armchair across from Elio and for a moment caught a glimpse of what his parents must have been staring at; even though this apartment was not _his_ home, even though he’d only been there a few short days, having Elio within its walls made it come alive in a way it hadn’t before. Up until now it had just been a darkened place he’d stagger back to late at night after a long day at the hospital. It had served its purpose as somewhere to rest his head until he could get back to Elio, nothing more. He had seen it objectively but had taken nothing in.

 

Now, however, his surroundings exploded into living Technicolor.

 

While far from a rustic, sixteenth-century mansion, the apartment was grand and eclectic in a way that seemed to suit the family even more effortlessly. The building dated back to the early 1900’s and boasted period details like twelve-foot ceilings, elaborate moldings with ceiling medallions, and herringbone floors. While the evidence of a modern remodel showed here and there, little touches of the Perlmans were everywhere. Bookshelves overflowed with texts and tomes in nearly every room, even the hallway. An ornate, antique wood hutch housed china and old photographs on a wall in an otherwise contemporary kitchen. Bright colors and mixed patterns were proudly displayed like they never could be alongside the austere, aristocratic taste of the inherited villa. It was a place both warm and homey like no house Oliver had ever lived in.

 

And then, of course, there was Elio’s room.

 

As if on cue, Elio suddenly pushed himself to his feet.

 

Oliver and the Professor stood in tandem, arms held out at the ready to offer assistance.

 

Elio swayed slightly but held his ground. Tight-lipped, he looked at the two of them expectantly, forehead creased. He raised one flippant hand as if to say, _What?_

At that moment Annella returned holding a tray of glasses and a full pitcher. She stopped in her tracks to take in what had to look like a comical cross between a silent film and a Mexican standoff.

 

The Professor recovered first. “Where are you going?”

 

It had to be the first time he’d ever asked that question; Elio’s bewildered expression certainly made it look as though that were the case. His gaze drifted down towards the end of the hall and back again.

 

“To your room?” Samuel clarified with a thumb jerked in that direction.

 

Elio nodded.

 

Samuel’s face remained expectant. “Yes?” he prodded.

 

An exasperated huff. “Yes.”

 

“Well, we’re about to have dinner soon,” Samuel intoned, arms crossing awkwardly in front of his chest. He nodded towards the kitchen. “It’s the first time we’ve all sat down to a meal together in a long time. Don’t you want to stay - ”

 

“Sammy,” interrupted Annella, “let him go. It’s been ages since he’s had any privacy…”

 

It was like watching a rerun of a poorly-acted family sitcom. The Professor made playing the part of a disapproving father look stiff and unconvincing. Oliver watched as Elio looked uneasily between his parents. Undeniably, he hadn’t been able to follow their exchange.

 

After a pause, Samuel relented with a sigh. “Okay, go ahead.” He waved dismissively down the hallway, but just as Elio turned away he reached out and captured his sleeve. “Elio…” he began, and then clumsily lifted one hand to say in sign language, <I love you.>

Elio’s gaze dropped to the floor. When he looked up again he wore a pasted on smile and a haunted look in his eye. After a moment or two he moved to walk away, but not before casting one hopeful look back in Oliver’s direction.

 

His heart skipped a beat - it was an open invitation to follow.

 

They watched him leave the room under his own steam, tagging pieces of furniture along the way to check his balance, trailing a hand against the nearest wall, until he disappeared behind a mostly closed door.

 

“Well,” the Professor deflated onto the sofa, pushing his glasses up his forehead while pinching the bridge of his nose. “That was about as much fun as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.”

 

Annella rubbed at his shoulders in silent comfort. “It’s alright,  _amore_.”

 

Samuel scoffed. “I sounded like a tyrant.” He cast them each a halfhearted glare, posture turning defensive. “But you know what the doctors told us – we need to discourage the bad habits. His responses need to be verbal.”

 

That much was definitely true. The audiologist had warned them that the gestures and eye movements Elio was relying on to communicate were a destructive pattern they couldn’t afford to support. Even in the case of patients who acquired post-lingual deafness, speech was an ability that would deteriorate if not practiced.

 

Oliver cleared his throat. “I heartily agree,” he assured, and reached down to pat the Professor’s arm. “And I know it’s something we’ll all uphold. It’s just…it’s a lot to ask for his first night. Maybe too much.”

 

With a very slow nod, Samuel hummed thoughtfully. “I see,” he began, pulling his glasses off completely to rub at the lenses with the corner of his shirt, “and when did you become so wise, hmm?” The look he shot him from beneath furrowed brows was both teasing and appreciative.

 

“I…” Oliver started, but whatever glib remark he’d been about to make died on his tongue. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

 

The pain reflected in the eyes staring back at him was limitless. “None of us do, son.” He said with a joyless smile. In the silence that followed, Oliver waited for an inspiring follow-up, or a parting remark of reassurance. Instead the Professor picked up a week-old newspaper from the coffee table and hid behind it with feigned interest.

 

At least that meant they had strength in numbers, Oliver told himself absently, as he squared his shoulders and wandered down the hall.

 

Elio’s bedroom was every bit as familiar, as urbane, as _Elio_ , as his room at the villa, only multiplied tenfold. The vintage green damask wallpaper was covered in posters and magazine cut-outs portraying everything music related from _Depeche Mode_ to Franz Liszt. The desk, nightstands, and dresser were all covered with neat stacks of magazines, paperbacks and hardcovers. On a fuchsia chair beneath the window lay a rumpled pile of laundry and cassettes, probably long forgotten in the midst of packing several weeks ago. Oliver smiled at the clutter – evidence that no matter how well he hid it, Elio was still the quintessential teenage boy.

 

There was also an electric keyboard positioned in the corner, and Elio was currently staring at it from where he sat on the corner of his bed.

 

Oliver entered the room as dramatically as possible, all loud steps and full-bodied movements, but with his back partially turned Elio didn’t seem to even notice him. He ignored the lump of emotion in his throat and crossed the room, right through Elio’s line of sight, and sat casually on the piano bench.

 

“Good to be home?” Oliver asked and let his eyes wander around the room for emphasis.

 

After his now typical half-beat pause for evaluation, Elio gave a small grin and a nod.

 

He nodded back. “You must be tired.” Oliver had to mime a sleeping motion with his eyes closed, head resting against his hands flattened together before Elio understood and agreed.

 

In the days after their meeting with the audiologist Elio’s recovery had slowly progressed. Though he still exhausted alarmingly easily, and probably would until he gained back some strength and the weight he’d lost in the hospital, the vertigo and dizziness he experienced upon standing had begun to improve. The doctors were confident that this meant the antibiotics were doing their job and the fluid in his inner ears was subsiding. Hopefully, Elio’s motor function would return to near-normal on it’s own with time.

 

His hearing however, had remained unchanged in that time.

 

“Where are you sleeping?”

                                                                                                                  

The sentence, while quiet, was so complete and unexpected that Oliver had to struggle to hide his shock; it had been days since Elio had verbalized something voluntarily. When he did speak it was often soft and mumbled. The specialists had told them that was normal – people who suddenly lost their hearing often avoided talking for fear of how loud they might be or how they might sound to everyone else. It was one of the many reasons why immediate supportive therapy came strongly encouraged.

 

It had come as a harsh realization for Oliver – but of course, Elio couldn’t really hear _himself_ , either.

 

“I’ve been staying in the guest room,” Tipping his head to the right, he indicating the room next door, and Elio nodded. “I’d have slept in here instead, but the other bed is bigger.” He teased.

 

Bit by bit, comprehension and the smile faded from Elio’s face. His gaze dropped to the floor.

 

Oliver’s throat seized painfully at the sight. He reached out and placed a gentle hand on one bony knee. “It’s okay,” he said gently, and waited for Elio to meet his eyes. “It’s okay.” The _Basics of American Sign Language_ leaflet in his back pocket was burning a hole, but he dared not pull it out now. He wracked his brain for the right sign, knew rationally it was one of the simplest, and made a feeble attempt.

 

If he got it wrong, Elio wouldn’t have told him, anyway. But he did bite his lip and offer a watery grin.

 

Not for the first time, Oliver felt a frightfully strong wave of rage and futility threaten to consume him. He just wanted to _speak_ to him, to communicate with this one person who truly mattered – to make him understand that he’d do everything in his power to take this pain away. But even that simple, undervalued ability had been taken away from them.

 

When the first week had come to a close at _Niguarda_ and it became clear that Elio’s hearing loss was the only thing not improving, the audiologist had begun to make referral suggestions. But the moment hearing aids had been so much as mentioned, Elio had spoken up for the first time in days.

 

“No.”

 

The Doctor, along with the rest of them, had looked to him in surprise. “I know we’re still hoping for further progress here, but it’s important that his ability to communicate doesn’t suffer in the meantime, and it has the potential to be a good long term solution.”

 

The Perlmans had looked hopeful. “He’d be able to hear? How clearly?” Annella had asked.

 

“Well, hearing aids only amplify – not recover what’s lost. Sounds that can already be heard will be made louder, and so that - ”

 

“No,” Elio had repeated, voice sharper. He’d glowered at them all afterward – he hated being discussed as if he weren’t in the room. “Too permanent.”

 

Oliver had vowed that on this matter he would stand by Elio, to always take his side. But now, as he sat across from him and felt the desolate sadness in the green eyes squeeze his lungs in a stranglehold, he realized they both couldn’t afford for him to do that any longer.

 

Elio’s gaze had floated back to the keyboard.

 

Oliver nodded at it over his shoulder. “I can turn it on, if you want.” He slid to one side, making space on the bench, and mimed his best Bach impression in the air. “You could give it a try? Maybe play me another bar or two of the piece you were working on, before...”

 

Warily, Elio gave him a sideways glance; as if he were expecting to walk into a trap, a lamb being lead to slaughter. He shook his head.

 

Oliver’s stomach fell. “Come on. If not here then maybe on the Grand?” There was a sleek, black _Steinway_ in the room Oliver was staying in, which also doubled as a study. “I’d really like to hear you play. Something – anything.” He tried to inject every ounce of sincerity he was feeling into his voice. Maybe, on some level, Elio would hear it.

 

The boy shook his head more firmly, rubbing at his eyes and stretching for a yawn.

 

While Oliver couldn’t hide his disappointment, he wasn’t entirely surprised. A few days ago during a session with the audiology department he’d been brought a toddler’s plastic piano – of all things – to test some of the higher frequencies in his range. Elio had nearly thrown the thing across the room.

 

Obviously, the fear of what could potentially be tragic outweighed the desire to even find out.

 

“Okay,” Oliver relented, and gave in with a light-hearted eye roll. He stood from his seat, smoothing out imaginary wrinkles from his shorts. “I’ll leave you to get settled.”

 

A hand reached out to snag his wrist as he walked by. When he looked down he found Elio staring back at him, expression unreadable.

 

Oliver blinked. “What is it?”

 

The nimble fingers ensnaring his wrist gave an insistent tug.

 

Oliver stepped closer and after a beat or two he was released. But before he had a chance to mourn the loss of contact, Elio’s head dropped forward, face nuzzled firmly into his waist. Oliver chuckled drunkenly, staggered by a sudden flood of elation. He looked down at the mop of dark hair pressing into his stomach. “Hey,” he murmured.

 

Maybe it was from the vibrations of his voice, or maybe he simply sensed it – Oliver didn’t care – but Elio looked up at him. With his chin propped on Oliver’s hipbone his face blossomed into the most beautiful and yet timid smile Oliver had ever seen.

 

Reaching down, he cupped the immaculately carved jaw in both his hands and pressed a feather-light kiss to his waiting mouth. It was tentative and slow, yet another long-awaited reunion of lips, but Elio tasted just the way he’d remembered. It felt like coming home, only to one infinitely sweeter than Oliver had ever known, and in that moment he knew no carefully selected words could ever explain that any better.

 

* 

 

That night Elio fell asleep shortly after dinner, sprawled on his stomach in the middle of his mattress. Oliver had looked in on him with a fond shake of his head and retreated.

 

But sometime many hours later, just before the sun began to rise, Oliver was awakened from a deep sleep by an eerily familiar sound. At first he was certain that it had to be his mind playing tricks on him, but when he strained to listen he could just make out the faint plinking of a soft, melancholy tune.

 

It was coming from Elio’s room.

 

Suddenly wide awake, Oliver threw back the sheets and bounded from the bed. The room was still unfamiliar to him and in the dark he may as well have been navigating a mine field – his knee found the corner of every sharp table edge, his foot tripped over stray shoes and the bedframe. It was while rubbing a spot on his forehead where he’d managed to knock it on the door that he realized the music had changed. It was clearly the electric piano, it’s volume lowered to a courteous yet still distinct level.  However, it was now – or perhaps had always been – choppy and fumbling. One note faltered, struck mistakenly, followed closely by another. Then another.

 

Oliver finally found the knob and grasped it, a sick feeling in his gut. As he stepped into the hall and took the few, short steps to Elio’s door, the sounds from within changed once again. The song had devolved to nothing, not a melody, not anything, just a single note held until it died out, then struck again, and again, each time growing incrementally louder.

 

When he finally found the courage to push the door open, the sight that met his eyes nearly knocked the wind out of him.

 

The room was lit from a single desk lamp shining in the corner. Elio was hunched over his keyboard, his back to him and therefore completely unaware that he was being watched. With his ear nearly flattened against the small speaker on the control panel, his right hand used one rigid finger to press the same key – middle C – over and over while slowly increasing the sound dial.

 

It didn’t matter that Oliver couldn’t see his face. The rigid line of despair across the skinny shoulders, the quaking breaths that shook his ribcage – it told him all he needed to know.

 

He was immediately filled with the shame of interrupting an intimate conversation or a tremendously private moment of grief. Numbly, Oliver pulled the door closed behind him and returned to his room. As he sat on the edge of the empty bed, wholly unable to ignore the mournful sounds coming from the other side of the wall, an instinct that he’d been trying to ignore for the last several days grew stronger and demanded acknowledgement.

 

He had promised Elio – really, he’d promised _himself_ – that he would never leave him again. But he also knew that to stand by and do nothing while Elio suffered like this would be a slow torture crueler than he could have possibly imagined. As he saw it, that left him with only one real option - one he'd been hoping to avoid. 

 

The last time Oliver had tried to do what was “best” for Elio, it had resulted in the biggest mistake of his life and had nearly cost them each other. He hoped with all his heart that one day Elio would understand why he needed to give it another try, and could find some way to forgive him.

 

*

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Please let me know if you're enjoying it :)
> 
> For anyone interested, this is the Milan apartment I was drawing inspiration from: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/realestate/real-estate-in-milan-italy.html


	8. Elio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! This is the first chapter told from our dear Elio's POV. 
> 
> From here on out, any sentences written in this format: <> are spoken via sign language. This will become far more prevalent in the chapters following this one.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

When Elio had been a boy, probably no more than six or seven years old, he’d gotten lost in a museum.

 

As a child, he’d loved nothing more than accompanying his father on the spontaneous trips and annual pilgrimages his work required. Their excursions across the continent to the various exhibits and galleries made him feel special, important, and incredibly lucky; he had the best, smartest dad in the world.

 

They’d walk the grand halls and salons of ancient buildings hand in hand for hours. Every single piece of artwork had a story, a hidden past, a deeper meaning, and his Papà knew them all.

 

In Paris, “Elio, you see this one? She is considered to be one of the finest classical sculptures in existence. It was created over two thousand years ago by a man named Alexandros of Antioch. Her name is Aphrodite, or Venus, and she’s the Goddess of love and beauty. No, of course she had arms, but the marble broke a long, long time ago.”

 

In Rome, “Ah, the _Resting Satyr_. The Ancient Greeks used to portray satyrs as old and ugly, but the artist Praxiteles, who sculpted this one, preferred to make them look softer, more youthful. See how he’s leaning on the trunk of the tree, how he’s resting his weight on only one leg? That’s right, it looks like he’s relaxed.”

 

And then, memorably, in Florence, “Now this is one of my favorites, Elio. This is the _Bronze_ _David_. Unlike Michaelangelo’s version, this _David_ is much younger, just a boy, really. He’s standing with his foot on the head of the beast, Goliath, who was the meanest warrior there ever was. The story says that none of the Israelite soldiers were brave enough to fight him until David came along.”

 

Elio can remember looking up at his Papà in awe. “But he was just a kid like me!”

 

“That’s right – he was a shepherd boy who was too young to fight. But he accepted the challenge anyway. The leader of the Israelites offered him armor and weapons, but David didn’t take them. He confronted the enemy with nothing but his slingshot, which he used to hit Goliath in the head with a stone. While the Giant was knocked to the ground, David stole his sword and cut off his head.”

 

“But how?” He’d asked, completely engrossed.

 

Papà had smiled and crouched down. “That’s the thing. Sometimes even the smallest and weakest ones are the bravest warriors, Ellie Belly.” A finger poked the middle of his chest. “Goliath was evil and David was good – just like you. And good over evil always wins, in the end. There’s a special power that comes from within. You don’t always have to see it to know its there.”

 

His imagination had run wild that afternoon, creating living-color versions of iron-clad heroes and ten-foot monsters that he’d chased with an invisible foil. So wild, that while exploring the winding staircases and courtyards of the _Palazzo del Bargello,_ he’d looked up to discover he’d wandered off on his own, and Papà was nowhere in sight.

 

As he’d roamed room to room searching frantically, fear became a slinking creature that prickled his skin and raised the hairs on his arms. Suddenly the sculptures and paintings sneered and laughed at him; Madonna’s sightless eyes followed his every move, the outstretched arms of Bacchus seemed to grab for him, and Medusa’s hair came alive with a hundred hisses and snapping jaws.

 

The myths and tales became dark and foreboding without Papà there to tell them.

 

Alone and terrified, he’d returned to the one spot that seemed the safest, the last place he’d felt his Papà’s hand in his. Under the watchful enigmatic smile of the _David_ , he’d waited.

 

“Elio, thank God!” His father had come running towards him, face white as a ghost. “Where have you been? I looked away for one second and you were gone!” He’d alternated between hugging him tightly and shaking him at arm’s length, his gentle face unforgettably stony. “Don’t ever do that to me again!”

 

“I’m sorry,” Elio had wailed.

 

The firm hold dissolved into another tender embrace. “It’s okay. It’s my fault, too.” A grateful sigh. “I looked everywhere, I - thank God I found you back here.”

 

He’d turned, pointing at the copper statue. “You said I didn’t have to see it for it to be real,” sniffed Elio.

 

“See what?” Papà had asked, perplexed.

 

“The good power.”

 

The anxious look had disappeared from his father’s face and was replaced with one that was both astounded and charmed. “I  _did_ say that, didn’t I?” He’d asked with a warm smile, pulling him close once more. “Come on, let’s get out of here, you.”

 

They’d walked out together, hands clasped tightly.

 

Now, at eighteen, Elio can’t help but remember that day with chilling clarity. In his mind’s eye he’s still standing there in the middle of the crowded museum, lost and alone, while nameless strangers pass heedlessly by and monsters reach from the confines of gilded frames.

 

And while he’d like to believe in the whole good prevailing over evil bit, he’s older now, too old to believe in a magical inner strength that conquers the impossible.

 

At best, he’s still hoping for the guiding hand to come along, take his, and show him the way out – but even that memory is growing hazier, less feasible, and more like one of his father’s beloved legends with each passing day.

 

 *

 

When Elio woke up to a darkened bedroom and rolled over to check his alarm clock, he let out a growl of frustration.

 

Or at least, he was pretty sure he did.

 

At some point someone had come in and drawn his curtains, which he’d purposely left open the night before. Usually, it was his mother and father’s voices over rattled dishes for their morning coffee that got him up each day. But while that was no longer in the realm of possibility and everyone seemed determined to let him sleep past noon, Elio had taken matters into his own hands. He’d spent enough of the summer lying in a bed.

 

With a huff, he sat up from his pillows and grabbed the pair of jeans he’d left pooled on the floor. As he stood to step into them, he had to reach out to grab the wardrobe door. The world tilted unceremoniously beneath his feet, as if he were on the ferry to Capri instead of the apartment’s solid oak floors. He slammed his eyes shut and waited for it to pass.

 

It took a pitifully long time to dress, and Elio was sure with all his knocking around that he’d probably made enough noise to alert the entire household. He was surprised, though relieved, that no one had burst in on him with their worry-creased foreheads and wide, shiny eyes.

 

His relief evaporated the moment he discovered why.

 

Mom, Papà, and a somber-looking Oliver were squished around the small kitchen table. They all clenched mugs with steaming contents, wore lines of tension around their eyes, and hangdog expressions. He felt as if he were interrupting a serious business meeting - or a memorial service.

 

His mother noticed him first. The way her face instantly morphed into a beaming smile was nearly hilarious. “ _Amore_!” She exclaimed – that much he _definitely_ heard. “Come! We…like…some…?”

 

He looked at her, at her cheerful but nervous expression, at the empty plate set for him at the table with Nutella and fresh fruit, and at the skillet still steaming on the stove. She’d made crepes.

 

Shit. Someone really _must_ have died.

 

With a well-mannered smile, he made his way to where his Papà was ready with a waiting chair. He sat slowly, hands braced on the table edge, and studied their faces – Papà’s was the same fervent, troubled expression of a concerned father that had been staring back at him for the last two weeks. It gave nothing away, at least nothing new, so Elio turned his attention to Oliver.

 

He nearly regretted it, because Oliver was different - easier to read, or at least he had been in the last several days. It was as though he’d decided to make a consolidated effort to wear his heart on his sleeve – or rather, his face – open and laid bare for Elio to look at whenever he saw fit. And what he saw there now, beneath the worry that always lingered in the bottomless ocean eyes, was trepidation. Dread.

 

A plate of hot food appeared beneath this nose, and his stomach rolled. He laid his hands palm open on the table, eyebrows raised. _Ok, what?_

Papà took a deep breath and reached behind him. He was holding the small whiteboard and pen they’d been given at the hospital.

 

Elio tried to guess what could possibly be coming next. Perhaps they'd heard his pathetic attempts at the keyboard in the wee hours when the sick curiosity had awoken him from a dead sleep. Elio could only assume that he'd kept the volume at a reasonable level - after all, he'd only just discovered that his own ears were too useless to tell the difference. They must have heard, then. That's why everyone looked grief-stricken; it's because they _were_ in mourning: here lies Elio's future, a career in composing, the so-called musical prodigy son...

 

He forcibly shoved the thought aside before full-tilt panic could set in. It was still too soon to think about all _that_ \- there was no point in dwelling in the unknown. And besides, it didn't explain the guilty look in Oliver's eyes.

 

That’s when it hit him. Of course. The clandestine meeting, the anxious, sullen expressions; they didn’t need to bother with a longer narrative – the inevitable needed no explanation. Elio pushed back into his seat and couldn’t look at Oliver. “You’re leaving,” he tried to mutter, but his mouth felt numb and bloodless on the words, he couldn’t be sure if it had come out intelligibly.

 

Oliver’s warm hand found his wrist and wouldn’t stop squeezing until he looked up. The pale pink lips were moving over words, one of which was a clear and nearly audible “No,” while his hair fluttered against his forehead with the intensity of his headshake.

 

Elio was confused. Relieved…but confused.

 

“Well, not…I…have…but…-ing that…me.”

 

It was like swimming deep underwater while someone shouted at you from somewhere on land. If you tried hard enough, you could just make out a word or two. But most, no matter how hard you strained to hear or kicked to the surface, were just out of reach. Discouraged, Elio heaved a breath that caught in his chest and blinked at the ceiling until spots started to crowd the corners of his vision.

 

The hand gently rubbed at his wrist again. When he glanced back Oliver had picked up and was holding the whiteboard. He waved it a little, brows lifted to his hairline in a, _Can I write it?_ signal.

 

Elio nodded.

 

Oliver’s hands were shaking when he withdrew the pen and turned the tablet for him to see. All it said was: _You come with me_

His frustration grew. How was he supposed to make any sense of that? “Where?”

 

Three more rapidly scribbled letters. _NYC_

Elio’s heart leapt to his throat and he forced himself to swallow it down. Eyes narrowed, he looked around the table at the eager faces staring back at him. Somewhere there was a catch – a ruse, a ploy, some kind of con they had cleverly devised for him to fall into.

 

 _I have contacts at Columbia_ , Oliver wrote. _Get you the best SLP_ _available in US_

And then the other shoe dropped.

 

His father, immediately sensing his disappointment, met his eye with a serious look in his own. “You need this. If you’re going to go to school in America one day, you need their sign language. Just in case.” What Elio didn’t understand he patiently repeated, over and over, as if to a child learning how to speak.

 

It was the first time anyone had been courageous enough to mention university, and it made his stomach sink. Up until now, he hadn’t even let himself think beyond what was going to happen in the next day, the next hour, the next _minute_. Suddenly, that cold comfort had been taken away from him. Eyes burning traitorously with tears, Elio shook his head. “How can I…” the words got tangled up in his throat.

 

“So you’ll defer a year,” Papà said, and gave him an encouraging smile. “Big deal!” he must have shouted it at the top of his lungs because it rang in Elio’s ears and his mother gave a startled jump.

 

Elio allowed a small, watery grin. His mother, nodding at him reassuringly, reached out to lovingly palm his cheek. He clasped her hand with his and squeezed, trying to think clearly amidst the sudden racing thoughts in his head. Learning new methods of communication, in his mind, had been only one step below hearing aids on the scale of ‘Giving Up’ and accepting this soundless world as his fate. But if, Heaven forbid, this torment continued and he couldn’t communicate with the people he _loved_ , he may as well throw in the towel now.

 

If he couldn’t have his father’s sagacious life advice, or his mother’s limitless terms of endearment, _God_ , if he couldn’t have just _anything_ of Oliver…

 

He looked up. Oliver was gazing at him with a look of longing and hopeful anticipation. But also something that looked ominously like…fear. Fear that he was making a big mistake, fear that Elio would never get any better than this, fear that no matter what, they could never make _them_  work. He couldn’t decide which – perhaps it was all three.

 

Absently, Elio realized that it didn’t matter. If this trip to New York were out of pity, or a sense of duty or debt to his parents, that was fine; as long as it meant even a _minute_ more with Oliver, it would be worth it. He didn’t know or care what that said about him.

 

But Oliver just studied him raptly, until the hairs on the back of Elio’s neck stood up, and then his lips began moving. Elio watched them intently, tried to pick out words to go along with what he saw on the painfully handsome face, and had to give up. After all, he couldn’t have said what Elio thought he’d said…

 

Oliver reached, patient as always, for the pen. _I want you with me_ , he wrote, and held it up to be seen.

 

Elio swallowed heavily. They were the words he’d only dreamt that he’d hear spill from Oliver’s flawless lips one day. And though there they were, in blatant black and white, Elio found himself struggling to believe them. Maybe, he’d just have to keep on dreaming.

 

*

 

There was an earthquake. Everything shook and vibrated with tooth-rattling intensity, hard enough for his ears to emit a shrieking ring, his eyes to rattle out of his sockets, and his brain to slosh against his skull. It reached a fever pitch and then somehow, inexplicably, got worse. Elio wasn’t sure which would happen first – his head exploding or the ground opening up to swallow him whole.

 

He got his answer: suddenly he was pitched forward, a final fiery descent into the world’s molten core.

 

A hand grabbed his arm and pulled him back. Elio’s eyes flew open and the infinite abyss was replaced with a pair of terrified blue eyes. The pressure in his skull refused to abate, the shrill ringing only intensified. He swallowed convulsively, and was suddenly heaving into an airsickness bag that had been thrust in front of his face.

 

It all came rushing back to him: The airport, his parents’ tearful goodbyes, the sedative before takeoff. New York.

 

 _Oliver_.

 

When he’d recovered enough to look up, Oliver was stroking back his hair while having a terse and impatient conversation with a very alarmed looking stewardess. _He’s fine, he’s fine,_ could be clearly read from Oliver’s disdainfully curled lips, no doubt trying to defend his travel partner’s sudden and violent awakening.

 

It dawned on him that his throat felt sore and strained as if from shouting, and he balked in humiliation. No wonder Oliver looked terrified.

 

The Doctors they’d consulted before the trip had warned that air travel could make some of his lingering symptoms worse. The tranquilizer they’d prescribed was supposed to have allowed him to sleep for most of the flight and through the worst of the unavoidable pressure build in his inner ear. So much for that.

 

Oliver was a ball of tension in the seat beside hm. He fretted with the blanket on Elio’s lap and offered him sips of water from the bottle he’d tucked in the seat back. <Are you ok?> He furtively signed by hand, mouth moving over the words at the same time.

 

They had been practicing a bit here and there with limited resources, but that query in particular Elio had seen enough by now to know by heart. He nodded.

 

Looking anything but reassured, Oliver frowned. He pointed out the window and made a slow declining motion with one hand. _Making our descent,_ he seemed to be explaining, and then pointed to his own temples with a sympathetic wince.

 

Elio nodded again. His ears had always popped during air travel, but the Labyrinthitis had made it feel more like scuba diving with a broken air tank. Clearly, landing while in a drug-induced sleep had played a cruel joke on his ravaged central nervous system. “Fight,” Elio mumbled, smacking one fist against his open palm, “or flight.” He made a half-aborted plane impression with his arms. Because _literally_.

 

The unabashed surprise and delight on Oliver’s face was worth any embarrassment he felt over using his voice.

 

Somehow, Elio made it through the rest of their time in the air more or less unscathed. By the time they’d touched ground the pressure in his inner ear had more or less stabilized, leaving him exhausted, dizzy, and sore in the aftermath. He let Oliver steer him past the arrivals gate and through the airport, parking him securely on a cushioned bench while he retrieved their luggage from the carousel. Elio was too out of it to even consider asserting his independence, or to gape at the overwhelming magnitude of the throngs and masses of _JFK_ airport.

 

He also didn’t remember getting into a cab, but the next thing he knew he was being awoken from inside of one with a gentle nudge. He let himself be helped outside onto a tree-lined street in front of a row of brownstones. Oliver only allowed him to shoulder his own backpack before ushering him towards the front doors of a five-floor walkup, the rest of the bags in tow.

 

Elio was only half aware as they trudged up the stairs, but after the third time his foot missed a step and Oliver had to catch him before he face-planted, he felt the puff of a warm breath on the back of his neck.

 

“Hey,” Oliver said, lips ghosting over the tender shell of his ear, close enough that Elio not only _heard_ it, but felt it resonate through every bone in his body. When he glanced back, he could tell from Oliver’s expressive face and his frantic Charades impression that he was suggesting he leave the bags and just carry Elio the rest of the way.

 

He may not have had much dignity left, but _that_ he couldn’t allow. It was the last push he needed to stagger up the rest of the stairs on his own.

 

Oliver shepherded him through a dead-bolted front door and into the small one bedroom apartment. They entered into an open living area – shiny wood floors, tiny kitchen in the corner, exposed brick wall, decrepit air conditioner hanging out one barred window. Oliver strode over to it and gave it a couple well-practiced thumps until it groaned to life.

 

It should have been momentous; by some miracle he had ended up thousands of miles away from home, standing for the first time in a different world, one that was purely and exclusively _Oliver._ How many times had he lay in bed, a yearning ache in his gut, and imagined just what this place would be like, down to the last detail? What would hang on the walls, what books would reside on the shelves? What it would feel like, smell like, _sound_ like…?

 

And yet against all odds, he was here, completely incapable of appreciating the moment. His head spun with the cruel irony of it.

 

His vision gave a dizzying tilt, but before he lost his balance Oliver was there, holding him up as he slowly untangled Elio’s arms from his backpack with a distressed look on his face. He managed to paste on a strained smile as he walked them both across the room with one hand holding Elio’s wrist and the other guiding at the small of his back.

 

Before he could protest – it couldn’t have been more than five o’clock New York time – his body was lowered onto a soft, squeaky mattress. Warm hands removed his shoes, tucked in his limbs, and pulled wrinkled, worn-thin sheets up to his chin. Elio forced his heavy eyelids open and found Oliver standing at the edge of the bed, regarding him with a weary expression.

 

Thankfully, no further inexpert attempts at sign language were offered; neither of them possessed the ability to communicate their feelings toward this cruel twist of fate - although it dawned on Elio that perhaps soon he would learn to. After all, that _was_ the very purpose he’d been brought here for.

 

Destiny may have thrown them together again for a second chance at the path not taken, but Elio couldn’t allow himself to forget: it was only because of the cruelest and most bitter bend in the road.

 

*

 

Oliver’s apartment was in Central Harlem in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood – across the street from Saint Nicholas Park, two blocks from the B and C trains, a ten minute walk to the Apollo Theatre, and a short bus ride to Columbia University where he worked. Elio was shown all of this with the help of a heavily creased map and detailed written directions while nodding along until it felt like his head would fly off his neck. It could have been printed in gibberish as far as he was concerned.

 

New York was an overwhelming and thorny beast that Oliver was determined to teach him how to traverse on his own without  _actually_ letting him do it.

 

The first few days were eerily similar to a hostage situation, although Elio couldn’t really find it within himself to mind much. Oliver would leave intermittently for groceries, cigarette runs, and Chinese takeout, but he always returned in record time, sweaty and out of breath, as if he didn’t trust Elio not to spontaneously combust or set the place on fire without his supervision. Elio pretended not to care – it gave him time to explore the apartment.

 

It may have been small and a little dingy – not unlike every New York apartment he’d ever seen in the movies – but to Elio it was like discovering ancient ruins, uncovering venerable secrets long buried. Bits and pieces of who Oliver was began to fill in with life and color where white blank pages had resided before.

 

There were very few photographs. The entire space was modestly furnished – a couch that faced the sparse brick wall, two overflowing bookcases, an ancient radiator in the corner, no television. Clearly, Oliver’s firm belief in ‘paying his own way’ extended beyond his academic endeavors.

 

There were no feminine touches – or any personal touches, really – of any kind. It looked like a place you went to at the end of every long day – where you existed, but didn’t _live_. Picturing Oliver alone here night after night made Elio extraordinarily sad.

 

Eventually, Oliver deemed him recovered enough from the journey to start taking him along when he left the apartment. Elio’s vertigo had improved significantly. The dizzy spells came fewer and farther between, usually only when he was tired or stood up too quickly. In the grand scheme of things it may have seemed like a minor victory, but it meant that Oliver began to give him slightly more freedom.

 

Slightly.

 

On a sunny day in early August, Oliver insisted on accompanying him to his first appointment with his new Speech Language Pathologist. Elio had been apprehensive about it for days, and on the train ride over he couldn’t help but cast several furtive glances in Oliver’s direction when he thought he wasn’t looking.

 

But of course, Oliver noticed. “What?”

 

 _Nothing_ , Elio shrugged.

 

He knew the growling engine of the bus was loud – Oliver went straight for the paper and pen he kept tucked in the pocket of his shirt. _This will be good for you_ , he wrote and nudged him with his shoulder.

 

Elio nodded stoically. He of course knew that in theory – at least it’s what he kept telling himself. He just wished it also didn’t feel like waving a white flag.

 

 _SLP is the best in her field. Came highly recommended by my contacts at Columbia._ Oliver pressed the piece of paper into his hands for him to take and turned his attention toward the front of the bus.

He guessed that signaled the end of the conversation, although a curious part of him wanted to ask how a young professor of philosophical hermeneutics had any interaction with the university’s rehabilitation department. Even though Oliver could have batted his eyes at a complete stranger and gotten a full contact list of the top specialists in the country let alone the state, it was probably even more likely that a ‘contact’ was someone he’d done a lot more than flirt with. Elio decided not to think about it too hard.

 

The office, conveniently, was only a few blocks from Columbia. Oliver insisted on walking him directly into the front desk, told him he’d be back in an hour, and then left to get some work done on the upcoming curriculum. Elio sat, knees bouncing, in a small waiting room not unlike a clinic reception with one major exception – there were toys in every corner and on every surface. In fact, the walls were decorated with murals of cartoon animals and alphabet wallpaper borders.

 

Just as he was starting to think that he’d gotten the address wrong, he faintly heard the sound of his name being called. When he looked up there was a young brown-haired woman clearly and loudly saying “Elio” while she expertly finger-spelled with her hands.

 

Hesitantly, he stood up and gave a small wave.

 

“Hi,” she said, waving back and extending a hand for a firm shake. “I’m Abby.” That, too, got the same rapid alphabetical signing treatment. She gave him a wide, friendly smile and turned on her heel, waving a single digit over her shoulder for him to follow.

 

The area she took him to was similar to a small conference room. It was private, only a few chairs set closely together with an oversized pad of chart paper on an easel in between, intimate meeting style, and a desk along the far wall. Also, Elio noticed with rising embarrassment, there more toys. In fact, they were everywhere; puzzles, stuffed animals, crayons, books…

 

The woman – Abby – touched his shoulder to get his attention. “Sit,” she instructed, and they took a seat opposite one another. She studied him carefully for a moment or two, and then began scribbling on the chart paper with a Sharpie. When she was done she spoke word-for-word exactly what she had written, hands flying in time with her lips. It said, <You look terrified. Is it because of all the kids’ stuff?>

 

He couldn’t help but shrug.

 

She smiled at him and wrote again. <A lot of my clients are children. Don’t worry – I won’t make you draw pictures to tell me how you’re feeling.> Then, <How is your hearing right now?> She asked.

 

“Better,” he told her in astonishment. It was true – whatever it was about her, when Abby spoke he was amazed to discover he could make out almost all of the words in each sentence.

 

Her eyes flashed significantly and the pen stilled in her hand. “…-ere’s a…that…you…”

 

His stomach fell. Okay, maybe not so much better, after all.

 

Abby shot him a bolstering grin as her hand moved across the page once more. <A few reasons,> she wrote, and then made a point form list: <this room is sound proof, I speak and enunciate clearly, you are reading the words first.> This last point she double underlined.

 

Heat rose to Elio’s cheeks. He felt like a child that had fallen for a painfully obvious magic trick.

 

<This is step 1 in learning to lip read. We will work on this. Knowing what words look like when spoken = you “hear” them better.> When she finished she capped her pen and put it down, giving him her full attention. “And, you need to focus on verbal replies. Okay?” Without the crutch of the written word, between her patient repetition and hand signs it took a few tries before he caught all of it.

 

Obviously, his medical file sent over from the doctors in Milan had brought her up to speed on his _behavioral difficulties_. He offered her a cynical nod.

 

She rolled her eyes and shook her head disapprovingly.

 

This young woman reminded him a bit of Mafalda – apparently being a smartass was going to get him nowhere fast. “Okay,” he sighed dramatically.

 

Abby gave him the thumbs up and began writing notes on a clipboard. “Are you living alone?”

 

Elio shook his head once. “Staying with a friend.” As soon as it left his mouth the irony dawned on him: it was the very description he’d once feared hearing come from Oliver’s lips, or so he’d accused that confrontational day in the villa’s spare bedroom. Now, as it came out so inadvertently, he couldn’t help but smirk.

 

To her credit, Abby barely batted an eye. After a beat or two she fixed him with a cool, evaluating look, and spoke. “You and your friend need to enroll in Signed English classes right away. There is one starting at the _Manhattanville Community Centre_ in a few days – I’m going to write down the information for you. I want you putting in at least thirty hours per week – preferably more, if possible.” She jotted a few lines on a piece of paper, tore off the bottom half, and handed it over.

 

It amazed him that she didn’t get tired of having to repeat what felt like every other word to him. Just watching the speed at which her hands moved over complexly signed expressions and phrases was exhausting. It took nearly twice as long for her to tell him everything she needed to, and Elio wished vehemently that she’d just go back to the message board. However, it was quickly becoming apparent that this lady wasn’t going to let him cut any corners.

 

“You and I will see each other here three times a week, to start with. We’ll work on the lip reading, but I want to focus on getting your verbal ability back to where it should be. You’re already getting lazy.” As if she’d heard the curse words he was exclaiming at her in his mind, Abby beamed at him with an overly embellished perky sweetness. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

 

All Elio could do was stare. At current, there were only two words he was interested in learning how to sign:

 

No. Shit.

 

*

 

That night was the first time Oliver kissed him in bed since they’d arrived in New York.

 

Sure, they’d kissed plenty of other times. When he left the apartment for corner-shop bagels or a jog around the park, Oliver would hold Elio’s face in his hands and press their mouths together like a soldier leaving for war. Though he was never gone for long – certainly not for Elio to take care of his needs with a long, hot shower – he’d caress his face and chastely peck his lips upon his return as if it had been a fortnight. Even when they departed _together_ Oliver would often crowd him at the front door until they were both dizzy and breathless – to make up for the affection they couldn’t share publicly, Elio supposed.

 

Whatever the reason, he wasn’t about to complain. This was definitely a ‘beggar’s can’t be chooser’s’ situation.

 

Because when it got late and they both ended up in the apartment’s only bed, whether separately or at the same time, Oliver would smile a small, gentle smile, tell him goodnight, and close his eyes to sleep. The few inches that separated their bodies may as well have been a mile.

 

At first, Elio became convinced it had to be some kind of game; a harmless attempt at hard-to-get, a sexual buildup as effective as watching the object of his affections sway to a thumping baseline with Chiara in his arms. But as time wore on and nothing changed, a dark and ugly thing began to grow in the pit of his stomach. It started to whisper to him in the middle of the night while Oliver breathed deep and evenly beside him, blissfully unaware.

 

_Why would he want you like this? You’re only here because he feels bad about leaving the first time, and this is how he’s paying reparations. You’re something broken he wants to see if he can fix – and when he realizes he can’t he’ll move on twice as quickly as he did before._

But on this night – this one, particular night – Oliver gazed at him while the moon shined in through the single bedroom window, brighter than any of the streetlights below. In that moment, those blue eyes drinking him in like water from a holy cup, Elio had never felt more desired, more _revered_ , and the ugly thing receded.

 

Oliver drew him down onto the mattress with a large, warm hand at his neck, and Elio fell desperately into his kiss. He could have drowned in sensation – their eager exchange of hot breaths, the rasp of stubble across his own smooth cheek – but when he lowered his hand to dip below the restricting waistband of Oliver’s underwear, the chiseled body stiffened, and gently caught his wrist.

 

Elio couldn’t look at him. The dismissal was much, much too condemning to ignore.

 

After, when Elio could tell that Oliver had fallen asleep, the whispering returned and kept him up until dawn. For once, Elio actually found himself praying for the silence.

 

*

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed this latest chapter. Y'all are the best :D
> 
> I'm elleinadine on Tumblr if you feel like following a blogging neophyte.


	9. Elio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for taking so long to update! I recently found out that I am pregnant (YAY!) and the first trimester is kicking my ass. I promise that the second I start feeling better that I will get right back at it!!
> 
> Please enjoy this chapter - and remember: sentences written in < > are dialogue delivered via hand signs only.

 

 

Weeks passed. The heat of summer reached its sweltering peak and then slowly began to abate to something more bearable. The promise of cooler weather, while enticing after long days with nothing but Oliver’s barely functioning A/C unit, brought with it one unpleasant reminder: September was coming.

 

More importantly, September meant the start of a new school year that would take Oliver away from him. Elio wasn’t sure which one of them was dreading it more.

 

Actually, that wasn’t entirely true – that award had to go to Oliver.

 

As the first day of regular classes grew nearer, Oliver practically worked himself into a frenzy as he took it upon himself to quiz Elio on the basics of the New York City transit system.

 

“Where do you catch the one train to get to SLP?” He demanded one day on the subway while his hands made jerky, distracted signs.

 

Elio rolled his eyes so hard it hurt. <We go there every other day. You think I don’t know by now?> He’d signed back.

 

Oliver glared at him. “Humor me.”

 

He sighed. <125 Street. Broadway _. >_

The relief on Oliver’s face had been so blatant, it was offensive. “Good,” he breathed.

 

 _<_ But only if the man in the car with black windows won’t offer me a ride.> Elio had signed, and then had to dodge the fingers that poked him contemptuously in the ribs.

 

Their ability to communicate had improved at a rate that had shocked and amazed them both. Within only a few short sessions with Abby, Elio’s lip-reading skills had taken off. She’d told him from the beginning that his natural ear for languages would give him a sizable advantage, and she hadn’t been wrong. Once he’d learned to spot the differences in the various vowel and consonant sounds, the rest had been a walk in the park. When paired with the limited amount he _could_ hear in a regular speech pattern, as long as the person was facing him Elio could follow a conversation almost faultlessly.

 

Where Elio had excelled at lip-reading, Oliver picked up hand signing suspiciously quickly. He claimed to have had a hearing impaired aunt and that with practice some of the vocabulary was ‘coming back to him’. While that may have been true, Elio also suspected that when Oliver slipped off to Columbia to ‘work on his syllabus’ during his speech therapy sessions with Abby that he was actually sneaking in a few extra SE classes.

 

SE – Signed English – they came to learn, was completely different from American Sign Language, or ASL. Where ASL was its own complete dialect with unique syntax, idioms, and grammar, SE was a signing technique representing literal English to make visible everything that that couldn’t be heard. While it modified and supplemented a lot of the vocabulary from ASL, it was comprised of a far more forgiving combination of facial expressions, gestural cues, and fingerspelling. They were still learning, but through exhaustive practice they’d more or less created their own system – unlike ASL which, like most languages, could have easily taken several years to master.

 

Oliver, ever the scholar, had said on more than one occasion that he was determined to be fluent in two. Elio didn’t know why he even bothered – the lip reading was all they really needed to get by.

 

“Yeah – and it works great when you can see my face. What if I’m across the room or if the lighting is bad?” Oliver persisted, as he always did. “And if we didn’t have hand signs, our conversations would a lot more one-sided.”

 

Elio didn’t want to admit it, but he was not altogether wrong. Speaking with a voice that he could barely hear remained an agonizing challenge. At the end of every session with Abby, who put him through exercise after exercise, Elio was always so frustrated and drained that the last thing he wanted to do was talk.

 

“Quit naggin’, _Mom_ ,” Elio would say aloud, just to get him off his back.

 

“Nagg- _ing_. You’re dropping the ends of your words again.” Between Abby’s persistence and what he got at home, the criticism always came in stereo.

 

That line of subject matter always seemed to end them up in the same place.

 

Oliver would grow quiet, a hesitant look would appear in his eye, and his approach would visibly soften. “You know,” he’d start, “you’d probably be a lot less self-conscious about speaking if…”

 

“Nope.” It was usually as loud as Elio ever managed to get.

 

With a sigh, Oliver never backed down.  “Please don’t behave like a child. I know you don't like the idea, but maybe…”

 

The upside to relying on lip-reading and hand signals to sustain a conversation was that when you wanted it to be over, all you had to do was look away.

 

He wished the same could be said about Abby. She had a tenacity about her that was impossible to ignore, and even when he managed she wasn’t nearly so quick to let a subject drop.

 

“Look, Elio – it’s no secret that the audiologist who treated you in Milan recommended that you be fitted for hearing aids. I read your file.” She told him during one particularly frustrating session. “If it’s something you’d be willing to explore, I could refer you somewhere locally. I think they could really help you – maybe even with the piano…”

 

He shook his head.

 

Abby’s eyes narrowed. “Are you kidding me, Bub?” She snorted, signing. “Remember who you're talking to. Don’t give me that crap.”

 

Exasperated, Elio sighed, “No.” He gave her a mock-sweet smile and added, “Thanks.”

 

“Is it because of how they look?” She pushed, sitting forward in her chair and tucking a strand of chestnut hair behind one ear. “Initially, that’s an issue for a lot of my clients, but the pros tremendously outweigh the cons. For one thing, the digital hearing aids that are available today are much smaller and more comfortable than the analog ones. They’re so discreet that most of the time if you’re not aware a person has the disability, you can’t – ”

 

“No.” Interrupted Elio, loud enough that his ears rang a little in the aftermath. He ducked his head meekly and stared at his shoes. “Don’t need ‘em.” He said firmly.

 

An insistent tap on his forearm made him look up into a pair of compassionate brown eyes. “Try again – full sentence, please.”

 

Elio huffed and shook his head at her in disbelief; the woman was relentless. “ _I_ don’t  _fucking_ need them,” he said deliberately and articulately.

 

She pursed her lips to smother a smile. “Much better.” Sitting back in her chair, she clasped her hands in her lap and observed him pensively for several heavy seconds. “Can I ask you a personal question? You don’t have to answer it if you really don’t want to.”

 

He couldn’t help but stare back at her – because did anyone ever say no to that? With a fair bit of reluctance, he nodded mutely.

 

For once, she didn’t call him out on it. “If your hearing never gets any better than this – right now, how it is today…what’s the absolute worst thing that would happen?” Abby asked while looking at him intently, her ever-present pen and clipboard cast aside and forgotten. Clearly, this was an off-the-record kind of situation.

 

Just like that, Elio felt his heart rate kick up a notch. She’d purposefully steered him into white waters, the barricaded territory that he dared not let his mind ever even wander to.

 

The obvious reasons bobbed to the surface where he’d become expert at pushing them back down – because he wasn’t willing to imagine a future that didn’t have music. Without it he didn’t know up from down, what he stood for, what he was good at or even interested in. There was a melody for every feeling, thought, emotion. Violins for sadness, flutes for joy. The piano allowed him to be loud, soft, brassy, gentle, harsh, mellow, light, dark…

 

Without it, could he even function? Would he be able to learn how?

 

The obvious reasons were the ones he knew to avoid, to turn away from before they started to get too close. The trouble was that there were more - answers to her question that he’d expelled to the far recesses of his mind because they were too frightening to turn over, to look at, to give a name to. It was a terrifying thought that losing his music wouldn’t be his biggest cost.

 

He must have paled or taken too long to answer, because Abby’s face became uncharacteristically soft as she reached out a hand to clasp his wrist. “It’s okay – you don’t have to say anything. I didn’t mean to upset you.” She gave him a reassuring smile. “Besides – it’s too soon to answer that definitively yet. You’re still recovering.”

 

Elio appreciated it. Even if she was lying to him a little.

 

The look in Abby’s eye turned thoughtful. “Elio, I’m going to say something and you can tell me to piss off or use another equally eloquent phrase afterwards if you prefer, Mr. Pottymouth.” She smirked at him, and then turned serious. “But your _friend_ …”

 

“Oliver,” he supplied.

 

“Oliver – I’m sure he doesn’t just keep you around for your perfect pitch and variations on Bach.” She shot him a sarcastic expression to go along with her signs, and then her smile turned sincere again. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think he’s going anywhere.”

 

He wanted to retort that she didn’t know what she was talking about – but there was a knowing glint in her eye like she was gently trying to tell him something _: I wasn’t born yesterday, kid._ And okay, maybe that were true. Maybe in the little Elio had talked about his _friend_ she’d figured out there was more to it than that. But she didn’t know Oliver. Sometimes, Elio felt like _he_ barely did.

 

She clapped her hands together, an effective interruption of the tension in the room, and began signing animatedly. “Okay! That’s enough of that,” she exclaimed, and beamed at him with an enigmatic, toothy grin.

 

Elio found himself gazing at her – this strange and wonderful big sister that some warped force of destiny had stuck him with – and realized that he actually found her to be quite attractive in a purely platonic, appreciative kind of way, like how his father would admire a timeless, shapely statue.

 

Abby’s grin became a sneer. “Let’s get back to those tongue and jaw exercises you were half-assing your way through.”

 

The smile melted from his face. On second thought…

 

* 

 

Their last day before the start of fall semester crept up on them with alarming velocity. Whenever they’d discussed it beforehand, the agreement had been to sleep in, relax, and treat it like any other Sunday. They had planned to spend it visiting some new exhibits at the Whitney and Guggenheim that they’d put off for most of August, a late lunch in Central Park, and most importantly, to “not agonize over the future”.

 

Of course, that wasn’t how it played out.

 

When Elio awoke that morning Oliver had been sitting up against the headboard looking wide-eyed and tense. There hadn’t been much point in lingering in bed after that.

 

It wasn’t as if they ever did anything terribly exciting there, anyway.

 

Much of the day was spent running errands in Harlem. Oliver dragged them all over the neighborhood stocking up on enough groceries for an apocalypse and buying Elio more reading material than he’d ever be able to finish in two lifetimes. When he insisted on dropping into Manhattanville for a “top up” signing class, Elio decided to put his foot down. The day had been tiring and strained enough already – exhaustion was beginning to tickle warningly at the corners of his vision.

 

As they completed their usual route and made the short walk to the building entrance, Elio stopped at the front steps. <Is this necessary?>

 

With an exasperated sigh, Oliver crossed his arms in front of his broad chest. “What is your problem today?” He demanded.

 

Elio’s eyebrows shot skyward as he tapped his own chest, expression and gestures aghast. < _My_ problem? You’re the one freaking out because you’re going back to work tomorrow>, he signed edgily. <I don’t know what the big deal is – I’ll be _fine_. >

 

The irritation that Oliver had been using as a cover seemed to dissolve, caught in the act. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and dropped is head to look at the ground – both forms of their communication effectively severed – and then, though he was usually mindful, spoke anyway. “Yeah, well, I need to make sure of that.”

 

Elio had to duck his head in order to read any of the words that fell from the down-turned lips. <Look, the books and stuff I get. You’re hoping I never need to step foot out of the apartment without you. But how is one more signing class going to help?>

The blonde head lifted to glare at him reproachfully. “Because as stupid as it seems to you, it will make me feel like you’ll be safe – that if something happens you’ll be able to go somewhere and get help.”  
  


<Where? A park full of mimes?>

 

A small cluster of straggling regulars Elio recognized from their weekend classes shouldered their way past them to get to the double doors. One of the young women, undoubtedly having parsed out what he’d just said, shot him a series of dirty looks while pushing in between them.

 

Flushed with shame, Elio dropped his eyes to his shoes.

 

To say that he wasn’t also dreading tomorrow – for Oliver to be gone at least four days a week – would be a lie. Rationally, Elio knew he’d be fine. He’d get by, he knew his way around well enough by now, at least to Abby’s office, the clinic at _Columbia Presbyterian_ where they monitored his ears and filled his prescriptions, and a few of the neighborhood shops and convenience stores, but those were the only places he ever went.

 

No, Oliver’s inevitable absence didn’t worry him in that way – it was more a fear of the gaping hole he’d leave in his wake. After all, he couldn’t even make a phone call to his parents without Oliver sitting beside him to act as interpreter. He was about to be well and truly alone. Alone meant imprisonment, inescapable quiet, nothing to focus on but the voice in his head. Which, Elio was afraid to admit, that as time went on he’d begun to forget what even _that_ sounded like. It was horrifying to think that eventually his thoughts, too, would fade into the all-encompassing silence along with everything else.

 

He knew that Oliver’s fears were far more tangible. He probably pictured Elio walking out into traffic and not hearing a car horn until it was about to slam into him, or a fire alarm going off somewhere in the building while he sat, completely unaware. Both of which, Elio had reminded him on several occasions, were high decibel sounds he would very likely hear. But when it came to Elio’s physical welfare, nothing seemed to quell Oliver’s fears.

 

On some level, Elio suspected that whenever Oliver looked at him he would always see a near-broken body lying in a hospital bed.

 

From the corner of Elio’s vision he saw Oliver shifting towards him, a hand half-raised as it reached out to the divide between their bodies to get his attention. If what came next were a sympathetic smile, an apologetic chuck to the arm, he didn’t think his fragile ego could take it.

 

So Elio dropped his shoulders and took a step away. Looking brazenly back in Oliver’s direction, he jerked his head towards the building entrance and turned to go inside. He didn’t need to look back to know that Oliver, surprised at the sudden turn of events, would follow.

 

Elio wasn’t ready to ‘talk’. The good thing about sign language classes – muteness was not only accepted, but encouraged.

 

*

 

He knew he could only avoid the unavoidable for so long. For the entire fifty-minute tutorial and one ten-minute coffee break, Oliver had frowned at him from his creaky folding chair, blue eyes clouded over with the warnings of an oncoming storm.

 

On the subway ride and short walk home, Elio had been careful to keep his eyes trained elsewhere – to the man busking for change at the B train station, the crows pecking at garbage under a park bench – anywhere but at Oliver’s tenacious lips. But back at the apartment there were only so many distractions available, and very few places to hide.

 

Before long Oliver cornered him where he sat on the sofa, staring out the window. “Why do you fight everything so hard?” He asked, his signs tense and deliberate.

 

Elio wished he would sit down for this. If they were about to have what was sure to be a long _tête-à-tête_ , as his mother would call it, he wasn’t looking forward to staring up at him in order to read the tension-lined mouth. <Fight what?> He asked with a sigh.

 

“Everything,” said Oliver. “Every single thing we do in an attempt to make any of this easier on you. Which I know, I _know_ it’s still not easy, but…you fight it all, every step of the way. And we just…”

 

Brow furrowing, Elio motioned wildly to interrupt. <Who is 'we'?> he demanded warily.

 

Oliver blinked. “Me, and your parents…” he seemed to steel himself. “…And Abby.”

 

<How would you know? You’ve never even met her.> Elio asked with a roll of his eyes. <Or are you two having secret meetings now to discuss me?>

If Oliver’s eyes got any wider, they’d pop right out of his head. “What? I – no! It’s not like – I mean…it’s not difficult to figure out. You don’t – Elio, you never _speak_ anymore.”

 

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Spine straightening defensively, as if ready for a fight, Elio fixed Oliver a look filled with all the insolence he could muster. Then he took a deep breath. “Yes I do,” he said on a voice that scraped at his unused vocal chords.

 

As always, it was the most surreal, out-of-body sensation: his throat hummed, his tongue moved, his lips parted, and yet to Elio’s ears it came out as nothing more than a muffled and distant murmur.

 

Oliver was staring at him, and he had the audacity to look dismayed. “No, you don’t. You hardly ever do. You refuse to do the exercises you bring home – I’ve seen the workbooks tossed aside or thrown away.” He shifted his weight from one leg to another, clearly unsure of how to continue, until he took a seat on the edge of the coffee table. “Your speech gets a little bit worse every week. I know that’s not easy for you to hear – to be _told_ , but its true. And missing the sound of your voice is upsetting enough, but if you refuse to even consider hearing aids, the thought that you don’t want to advance your signing ability is concerning me. I’m starting to think that you don’t even want to improve anymore.”

 

He was caged in – Oliver was too close, there was nowhere to run to. “You’re right,” he quietly said, so softly that the only way he knew he’d made any sound at all was the stricken look on the face in front of him. “I don’t.”

 

“How can you say that?”

 

Elio squeezed his eyes shut. “'Cause I have to get _better_.” In the dark like this it was easy for pretend that he hadn’t made a sound – that his voice wasn’t weak, that his words were clear and precise, that Oliver wasn’t staring at him like he was failing.

 

But a warm, wide palm cupped the back of his neck and demanded his attention. Oliver’s gaze was too wide to look at, too pained, so he stared intently at his lips instead. “I know, _I know_.” He crooned, and up close like this Elio could feel and _hear_ his rumbling tenor. “But Buddy, maybe it’s time to consider - ”

 

It felt like being electrocuted. Elio jolted away from his hold. “Don’t call me ‘Buddy’. I’m not – we’re not _friends_ ,” he spat.

 

Oliver looked as if he’d been slapped, but he withdrew his touch and held out his hands in surrender. “Please. I’m not saying any of this to hurt you.”

 

“I _have_ to get better,” Elio repeated, eyes darting nervously around the room. Surely the walls weren’t _really_ closing in on him. “Okay? I’m not going to need all _this_ ,” he said, gesturing wildly at the space between them where their hands, for once, lay silent.

 

“Okay – Elio, I know this is hard, but it will be…”

“No! Don’t say it’s goin' be okay, it’s _not_ okay. I’m _going_ to get better. Alright? I will, I _promise_.”

A devastated look passed over Oliver’s face. “What – promise? You don’t have to _promise_ _me_ anything…” He shook his head, as if to clear it, and placed a steadying hand on Elio’s pale, knobby knee. “Elio, please slow down. _Please_ sign to me – I can barely understand you right now.”

 

It occurred to him all at once that he was close to losing it – whatever equilibrium he still had left was rapidly vanishing and likely his verbal articulacy along with it. His chest was heaving as if he’d run a race, the room was starting to spin, his throat felt clogged with tears. But his arms were suddenly too heavy to lift, his fingers had gone numb, and there was no way he could coerce them into forming the words he needed to say. “I can’t – I have to - ” he choked, dropping his head into his hands, “You’ll never want me like this!” He shouted, and let it get swallowed up by the soundless abyss and the floorboards below.

 

Nothing happened for several moments. As Elio sat motionless, perpetually lost in the void, it was easy to imagine that Oliver had gotten up and left; that there was no one else in the apartment, that the taxis and buses and crowds had disappeared from the streets below, and every living thing in the universe along with it.

 

Utterly, irrevocably alone.

 

Until, suddenly, there was movement. Oliver, kneeling on the floor at his feet, slowly lifted his head with a gentle hand on either side of his face. The blue eyes only inches away from his own were startlingly bloodshot as they pinned him in place with their intensity. “I want _you_. I’ve never wanted anything more.”

 

Elio blinked furiously to clear his blurring vision. “No,” he croaked, trying to shake his head free, and a few scalding tears slipped down his cheeks for his efforts. _You want me until you don’t_ , he thought, _you’re interested until you remember that I’m not the same as when you found me…_

 

Oliver’s grip was firm and it held him fast. “Would you stop?” He asked, the rough pads of his thumbs tracing soothing patterns on his cheekbones. “Stop…just stop fighting.” And then he leaned forward and slowly kissed away the moisture from his face.

Elio’s body gave in before his mind had a chance to remember why he’d put up a fight in the first place.

 

Wind gone from his sails, he went limp in the two arms that both held him up and held him down. Oliver took it as an open invitation and descended on his mouth like a man starving. Their tongues crashed together in a hot, frenzied tangle and Elio lost his breath all over again as Oliver’s mile-long hand span roamed up and down his ribcage, plucking impatiently at his t-shirt.

 

If it stopped here, now, and went no further than just another _kiss_ , Elio knew that it would be all over. A final, devastating wedge between them, a dismissive blow from which his fragile heart would never recover.

 

It was an understanding that filled him with a shocking sense of both resignation and dread.

 

That’s when Oliver gripped him around the hips and _tugged_ until Elio’s ass rode only the very edge of the couch cushion. With Oliver knelt between his legs, Elio’s knees were forced to split apart to accommodate the larger frame and soon they were flush together, chest to chest, pelvis to pelvis.

 

Elio’s vision just about went white. He was vaguely aware of the hands encircling his narrow waist, fingers and thumbs of each almost touching, as Oliver’s spit and tear slick lips began to trail down from his own panting mouth to his jaw, then down the long plane of his neck, and then…

 

One of Oliver’s palms connected gently but firmly with his chest and pushed. Elio fell back against the sofa, dazed, and looked down the length of his body as a pair of azure eyes flashed hungrily as they raked over his pliant form. What he saw there made his stomach flutter and his skin tingle – pure and unabashed desire. If it were an act, it was an amazingly convincing one…and why? What would be the point? But could he let himself be so naive as to believe that maybe, even after all this time of nothing but gentle kisses and hesitant touches that he’d been wrong about everything?

 

A large, warm hand cupped him through his jeans while the other worked open his fly and Elio’s mind short-circuited.

 

Jesus fucking Christ. He was going to come before Oliver even touched him.

 

But Oliver, all too aware and probably familiar with his sensitive state, circled a thumb and index finger around the base of his dick the moment it sprang free from his waistband. His lips parted over a wicked grin, saying something exquisitely vulgar, no doubt, but Elio couldn’t have deciphered it to save his soul. And in another second it didn’t matter anyway, because those lips closed over the head of his red and leaking cock and the rest of the world faded away.

 

It could have been minutes or hours – Elio didn’t know or care. He rode on wave after wave of pleasure as Oliver’s mouth sucked him clean down to the root and back again, over and over, with no sign or hope of relief. Until, suddenly and without warning, there was; the vice-like grip above his balls was released and Elio was coming harder than he could ever remember before while Oliver drank him dry, wringing from him every last drop and sense of control.

 

It took several long seconds to come back to his body, but when he did, Elio blinked to clear the spots from his vision and found Oliver, sweaty in the late afternoon heat, tousled blonde hair, gazing unflinchingly back at him as he dabbed contentedly at one corner of his mouth with a thumb.

                                                                                

It had to be the most beautiful sight Elio had ever seen.

 

He was moving before his brain even came back online. Leaning forward, his lips crashed against Oliver’s in a near-painful collision as he forced his way into the hot, wet heat, licking up the last lingering traces of himself in the corners of the curved mouth. Lightheaded, he all but fell onto Oliver’s lap in a graceless tumble of flailing limbs.

 

Elio didn’t care. He had to touch the smooth, golden skin, feel his fingertips tangle in a thicket of chest hair, get his hands around the scorching length of Oliver’s implausibly perfect prick…

 

When two hands encircled his wrists and gently pushed him away he nearly let out a wail of despair.

 

So that was it, then.

 

<Elio,> Oliver was frantically waving his sign name because Elio refused to look at him – it was a letter E held over his heart, his fingers hovering over the thumb instead of flush against it, the correct way. In their very first signing class the teacher had warned that when presented imprecisely the deaf community interpreted it as an impetuous, shouting mouth – a ‘screaming E’ as she’d called it. Oliver had smirked at the description and he’d been dubbed as such ever since.

 

Seeing it now was like a stab of betrayal; his own name on beseeching, repentant hands, after a _pity_ blowjob.

 

It was too much – the roaring of blood in his ears, the way the room seemed to coalesce and shiver at the edges of his vision, the sickening lurch of rejection and shame in the pit of his stomach. He had to get away before he witnessed something he’d never be able to unsee – aversion, apathy – on the face he adored most.

 

Elio yanked his wrists free and scrambled up too quickly onto coltish legs. His jacket was draped over a chair at the small dining table and as he made a grab for it the ground seemed to swim and dip from under him.

 

A steadying hand reached out to grab him as he staggered.

 

“Do _not_ touch me.” Elio shouted, wrenching himself free so hard that his shoulder made bruising contact with the wall.

 

Oliver pulled back, face sheet-white, as he remained frozen and kneeling on the floor.

 

Without another look back, Elio pushed himself forward on unsteady feet and grabbed for the front door. It took several attempts to undo the chain and deadbolt with shaking hands and blurring vision, but freedom was intoxicatingly close.

 

“-lio…begging you, ple-…go…this.”

 

It came from somewhere behind him, broken and pleading, comprehensible if he wanted it to be and completely incoherent if he didn’t. Elio wasted one precious moment of indecision with his eyes screwed shut and heart pounding painfully in his chest before he threw the door open and staggered out into the hall as fast as his stumbling feet would carry him.

 

He was so done with _talking_. There weren’t words in any language, spoken or otherwise, to explain that kind of anguish and humiliation, anyway.

 

*

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading, please let me know if you enjoyed this latest instalment!!
> 
> No, you will not be fluent in sign language after several weeks of intensive classes ;) Elio and Oliver are...special.
> 
> I'm elleinadine on Tumblr!


	10. Elio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I want to thank everyone for the overwhelming response to the news of my pregnancy - y'all are SO SWEET!! This community is amazing, I couldn't believe the outpouring of love and well-wishes. THANK YOU!!
> 
> So sorry for the delay in updating, life around here has been crazy. First the dreaded first trimester, then a major move...it left very little writing time. I will TRY to do better next time, but I won't make any promises - other than this story WILL be completed eventually!!
> 
> Now, please read on and enjoy!!

 

 

Elio walked.

 

He’d left without his wallet or even a pocket full of change for a bus or train fare, so his potential destinations were somewhat limited. He was well aware that he still tired quickly on a good day, and this had been the farthest thing from that in quite some time. Still, with each step away from the apartment and lungful of smoggy New York air, the coil of anxiety in his chest began to loosen.

 

In the unlikely event that Oliver would try to follow him, Elio made as many inadvertent turns as possible; a shortcut through a parking lot here, a right where they usually went left there. It had the desired result – whenever he looked over his shoulder there was nothing but the long stretch of his own shadow on the sidewalk behind him.

 

The initial shocking sting had faded and in its wake he’d been left reeling, hollowed out and completely bereft; it was out in the open now, the thing they could both no longer avoid. The truth they’d been burying, the evidence they’d been ignoring – revealed from an experiment forced by Oliver’s own hand.

 

Despite all the protests, it couldn’t have been any clearer: he didn’t _really_ want Elio. Not anymore.

 

To Elio, actions had always spoken louder the words, the irony of which made him sick to his stomach. The way, for the umpteenth time, Oliver had withdrawn from his touch may as well have been screamed from the rooftops – a recoil of disgust, a flinch of abhorrence. Whatever it was that had once managed to draw someone as heavenly and exceptional as Oliver to him must have been gone now, stripped away after the illness had ravaged his body and taken his hearing. Or perhaps, they were somehow one and the same.

 

Compared to Oliver’s knee-weakening allure and disarmingly handsome features, Elio knew he wasn’t much to look at. The meningitis had only succeeded in making everything more severe – his fair skin a little paler, underdeveloped chest that much scrawnier. Now, musical aptitude indefinitely absent, without sharp wit and rapier banter to fall back on, what exactly _did_ he have to offer?

 

It was amazing, actually, that everything hadn’t come to a head much, much sooner. He was nothing more than Oliver’s charge, a responsibility, a _burden_ that he clearly regretted bringing back into the country with him, let alone inviting to share his bed.

 

Elio stopped in his tracks. Even though admitting the thought alone hurt worse than picking at an open wound, he couldn’t deny his current status: Oliver’s liability, a physical and emotional drain. And here he was, _draining_. On the eve of Oliver’s first day back in the classroom.

 

 _Fuck_. He knew he had to go back.

 

He sighed, scrubbing a shaking hand through tousled curls as he took in his surroundings. Unfortunately, his random course plotting had been a bit too effective; Elio found himself very much alone and more than a little bit lost.

 

As he was craning his neck to look for familiar buildings, landmarks, anything that might help him to orient himself, a figure approached suddenly from his peripheral vision – too close and without the cautioning of footsteps – causing him to flinch in surprise.

 

“…you ha- the…?” It was a man in ripped denim and greasy, stringy hair. His lips barely seemed to move when he talked, impossible to have read even if Elio had been prepared for it. Fortunately, the stranger was tapping at his own empty wrist in the universal sign for ‘What time is it?’

 

Elio offered a polite smile – and had no sooner looked down at his digital watch before a glancing blow caught him directly in the solar plexus.

 

One minute he’d been standing, the next his tailbone made breath-stealing contact with the pavement. If he’d had any breath to steal, that is. The hit to his stomach had knocked all the air from his lungs in a _whoosh_ , and he lay splayed, gasping like a fish out of water, while the blood roared in his ears.

 

He registered something looming over him. Not something – someone. The torn jeans guy. The thin, rigid lips were muttering once again, his grubby hand extended in a frantic gesture: open-close-open-close.

 

“I don’t have my wallet,” Elio said, and patted himself down in show.

 

Another crack came out of nowhere, this time to his jaw. Boom, just like that, and his vision exploded into stars.

 

It was as if he’d floated outside of his body and stood several feet away, watching the scene unfold like some innocent bystander. Dimly, he wanted to laugh – he’d never been punched before, not really. Not like in the movies, where there’s a deafening _smack!_ and the target's head snaps back and blood sprays grotesquely onto the nearest surface. It figured that if it were to ever happen to him, it would be here – on the gritty New York streets that Oliver had been too afraid to let him walk alone.

 

Life was funny like that.

 

Clearly, he took too long to react. The fist connected with his face again – a cheekbone, his nose, he couldn’t be too sure. His head throbbed with indefinable pain, and before he could make sense of what was happening he felt the sleeve of his jacket being wrenched from his body.

 

Elio went limp in response, eager to behave as compliantly as possible, but it proved unrewarding; after the outerwear had been jerked forcefully from his body he received a well-aimed kick to his ribcage that had him curling and coughing up what felt like all of his internal organs. He watched with watering eyes as those very same grubby feet turned and sprinted away.

 

Oh yeah – and his shitty watch was gone, too.

 

He lay unmoving on the cement for who knows how long; it wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. Behind the dank, trash bin-lined back entrance of a grungy corner store – what the _hell_ had he been thinking, anyway? – no one was going to come rushing to his aid. Elio waited for the spots to recede from his vision, for the pain to die down from each gasping breath he couldn’t help but take. Eventually, while the shadows began to stretch longer against the alley brick walls, it abated.

 

Ever so slowly, Elio sat up. Nothing felt broken – definitely bruised and swollen, but no sharp, unmistakable stabs of bone injury pain, like the time he’d fallen off his bike at twelve and fractured his wrist. Moving carefully, he pushed himself shakily to his feet.

 

He didn’t know exactly what he wanted to do yet, or where to go – but he certainly wasn’t about to stay here another moment longer. So he started walking again - slowly.

 

Dazed, Elio attempted to reverse his tracks and take himself back to a more familiar part of the neighborhood. The sun was sinking lower, beginning to disappear behind buildings and taking with it the Indian summer warmth. Elio wrapped his arms around his torso and did his best not to look like some Shark that’d just had a run-in with a Jet.

 

Probably, he was failing. Because at the next street over he stumbled upon a corner bus stop, and several of the people waiting there shot him looks of concern and thinly-veiled apprehension.

 

Elio brought a hand to his face, self-conscious, and felt a puffy, crusting cut near his eyebrow, another beside his lip. Perfect.

 

“Swee- are…? Do…-eed help?”

 

He flinched at the stranger’s voice as yet another shadow approached suddenly from the corner of his vision. A maternal-eyed concerned citizen was giving him the kind of look that said police and a whole lot of unwanted attention were in his future if he didn’t get out of here quickly.

 

Dusting off his most charismatic smile, Elio stood a little straighter than his bruised ribs allowed. “I’m fine – thank you,” he told her between gritted teeth.

 

She eyed him uncertainly and mumbled something that he couldn’t quite make out.

 

With a cordial nod, Elio set off down the sidewalk as quickly and diffidently as he could. Fortunately, at the next block over he finally happened upon a familiar sight: a little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop they sometimes stopped at on the way home from the 2 Train station; he was only a few blocks from the apartment.

 

Home – _no_ , Oliver’s home.

 

Elio’s feet began to carry him on autopilot. The sigh of relief he felt shuddering his battered ribcage came as an unnerving surprise. For all he bemoaned Oliver’s over-cautious approach and constant nagging when it came to their new methods of communication, right now he was starving for it. At the end of the day, Oliver was the only one he could actually _talk_ to - the only one who had been stubborn and persistent enough to create some _mélange_ of a language that Elio was now completely dependent upon.

 

In that moment, heart and injuries throbbing, Elio both loved and hated him for it.

 

It was getting dark out by the time his weaving footsteps finally stopped in front of the welcoming sight of the brownstone row. Elio dragged himself up to the main door of the building and managed to stagger inside. An unwelcome feeling of safety settled over him that he wished he could shrug off – because he didn’t _really_ belong here. Too tired to argue, especially with himself, Elio let his back find the nearest wall and slid down until his butt met the old, musty carpet.

 

He just needed time to regroup, and figure out his next move. Oliver was probably settling down for an early night before his big day tomorrow – maybe, if Elio was quiet enough, he could slink back into the apartment without causing much of a disturbance.

 

The wall at his back gave a sudden quake. Elio opened eyes he didn’t remember closing and saw the handrails of the staircase shake with the intensity of thundering footfalls. A tousled blond head stared down at him from several landings up above. “Elio!”

 

He heard that – or at least he thought he did. Even through a haze of fatigue and a rapidly swelling eye, from several feet away he’d seen Oliver’s lips spell it out like a flashing neon sign.

 

“Where the hell have you been? How could you just walk out like that without telling me where…” Oliver came hurtling down the rest of the stairs toward him and stopped, eyes widening. “My God – Elio, what happened to you?”

 

As embarrassed as he already felt, Elio was too exhausted to sign. “Mugged,” he muttered.

 

While Oliver crouched before him his pale eyes roved over Elio’s body, stuttering on the visible damage. He reached up a hand that seemed destined to brush the hair from the cut on his forehead. Elio couldn’t help but flinch away from it.

 

Oliver ignored him and gently inspected it anyway. “Someone – _attacked_ you?” He asked, face slipping seamlessly from concerned to furious and back again.

 

Elio shrugged, and winced.

 

Large hands held him by the shoulders and stared into his eyes. “Who did this to you?” Oliver demanded, enunciating like he used to back when Elio was still learning to spot the differences between vowel sounds.

 

<Like I know every thief in New York?> Elio signed sarcastically, feeling a little proud of himself. <That was my favorite jacket, too.> He added petulantly for good measure, and tried to draw his knees up to his chest to put a little distance between their bodies. The pull to his ribs drew a hiss of pain past his lips.

 

Oliver’s eyes flared and his hands began their search of Elio’s body with renewed fervor. He tried to bat away the pull at the hem of his shirt, but Oliver gently fought him off and lifted it. Elio assumed his torso must have already started bruising over – or maybe the tread marks from the asshole’s dirty sneakers were imprinted right on his lily-white skin – because Oliver’s face turned an alarming shade of pale.

 

Guilt, compassion – something unwanted but inescapable fought its way to the surface. <I’m alright.> Elio reassured.

 

The look that began to contort Oliver’s fine features could only be described as murderous. Coolly, he settled himself back on his haunches with a look in his ice blue eyes that made Elio shiver. He began to push himself to his feet.

 

Elio found himself grasping onto a fistful of Oliver’s blue cotton t-shirt to keep him from standing. “Where are you going?” he demanded aloud.

 

Oliver wouldn’t meet his gaze as he tried to untangle the clenched fingers from his clothing. His lips barely moved over the words Elio felt reverberate through the broad chest.

 

“What?” he demanded, ducking his head to read what was directed at the floor.

 

The hands wrestling with his stilled for a moment and squeezed. Oliver leveled him with a stare of such intensity that made Elio nearly flinch away again. “ _No one_ hurts you.” He repeated, and then took advantage of Elio’s surprise to free himself and rise.

 

Elio watched in disbelief as Oliver bared his teeth and squared his shoulders like a bull facing down a matador. <What are you going to do?> he demanded, incredulous but panicked. <Beat up every thug you see wearing a denim coat?> _Shut up, Elio,_ he snapped at himself internally, _at this rate all you’re doing is giving him ideas._

 

It didn’t really matter, though, because Oliver wasn’t looking at him, anyway.

 

Suddenly nervous, Elio cleared his dry throat. “Don’t go,” he begged quietly.

 

Maybe _too_ quietly, because Oliver either didn’t hear him or chose to ignore it.

 

“Don’t. Go.” He tried again.

 

No response. Oliver reached for the door handle with a white knuckled grip.

 

Enraged, Elio slammed his hands against the wall at his spine as hard as he could. His own ears registered little more than a muted thud, but the stinging of his palms and the turn of Oliver’s head told him it had been loud enough. <Don’t leave! Do _not_ walk away!> He felt out of breath for a race he didn’t remember running. <You promised. You promised you wouldn’t leave me again. It was _my_ turn to leave and I came back so _you_ don’t get to go.> He scrubbed a fist at traitorously stinging eyes.

 

The cold fury seemed to melt off Oliver’s face in an instant. He let go of the door and returned to his place at Elio’s side. “I’m sorry, I’m _so_ sorry,” he murmured, fingers gentle at Elio’s jaw as he resumed visually cataloguing every bump and bruise. “We’ll get you taken care of. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

 

<No hospitals.> Elio signed immediately. Best to put that idea to rest as soon as possible.

 

“What? Elio, you’re hurt – ”

 

Elio shook his head. <It’s not bad. Just a few bruises. I’ll be fine.> He’d seen the inside of too many sterile, white rooms, been confined to too many railed beds. The mere thought of returning made his heart pound. <No hospitals.> He repeated, praying that his hands weren’t shaking as badly as they seemed to be.

 

He looked conflicted, but eventually Oliver nodded. “Okay,” he relented. “Let’s get you upstairs, then.” One strong arm began to snake around and loop Elio’s thin waist.

 

Jerking from the hold, Elio pushed up on wobbling knees. <I’m fine.> he insisted, and rose slowly, breathing shallow, to step away from the anchor of the wall.

 

The world tilted before his eyes as he felt the blood drain from his face. Oliver’s hands were immediately at his middle again, another tugging at his arm. Before he could lift his hands to sign in protest, Oliver grabbed his wrists and shook them quiet.

 

“Just - shut up, okay?” Oliver pleaded, “I won’t take you to the hospital – you won that round. But I _am_ carrying you up those fucking stairs.”

 

Elio didn’t know how to argue with that. So he let the fight go out of him – for now – and wrapped an arm around Oliver’s warm, sun-bronzed neck while his feet were lifted effortlessly off the floor. He closed his eyes and pretended it hid him from the burn of humiliation as they ascended the dreaded staircase.

 

He made the mistake of not looking until it was too late. Because Oliver had taken him well past the threshold of the apartment and around the tight corner into the tiny, claustrophobic bathroom all before he even had the chance to protest. Finally, as he found himself being lowered to sit on the closed lid of the toilet, he glanced up at Oliver from beneath a curtain of bangs. <Okay. I’ve got it from here.>

 

Oliver barely paid any attention to his signs. “I’m going to clean up these cuts on your face first,” he said, and pulled out a small first aid kid from the cupboard below the sink.

 

The first dab of an antiseptic cotton swab to his brow made Elio pull away. <I can handle it.> He reached up to grab for the offending item with a stiff upper lip.

 

He wasn’t a child – he didn’t need to be looked after. Not by his parents, not by a stranger, and certainly not by someone who seemed repelled by this touch.

 

But Oliver stood his ground. “I know that you can,” he conceded gently, and held his gaze. “But…just let me. Okay?”

 

He didn’t have a tone of voice to pair with the expression on Oliver’s face, but as the hands fiercely protected their bounty from him while Elio desperately grappled with rising emotions, he suddenly had to remind himself what object Oliver was withholding; it was a cotton ball – not a pitted peach. Though the sense of déjà vu was eerily strong, everything – _everything –_ was different now. He had to swallow over a lump in his throat and, against his better judgment, nodded.

 

Oliver went about tending to his face with tender and painstaking attention. Though it was even more painful than the sting of alcohol on his open cuts, Elio consented to the gentle fingers that held his chin still and the eyes that studied his face with unwavering devotion. However, when apparently satisfied with his ministrations, Oliver’s gaze dropped and hands reached once more for the bottom of his shirt, Elio’s endurance abruptly ran out.

 

<Leave it.> He signed while pushing Oliver away.

 

“Elio, I need to – your ribs are badly bruised, I need to take a look…” he reached out again.

 

Elio yanked his clothing back in place. <It’s fine! You already saw it.> He tried to angle his body away, but in the tight space it was impossible to find any breathing room without physically knocking Oliver out of the way.

 

Oliver’s expression was earnest. “Please. Just let me help you take off your shirt, and – ”

 

Fuck, he just wasn’t _getting_ it. “No,” Elio growled. The word rumbled up from somewhere deep and forgotten in his chest.

 

Finally, Oliver’s hands fell to his sides. “Why not?” He all but demanded.

 

The bathroom suddenly felt cold, the overhead lights harsh and unforgiving. <You don’t have to look at me.> Elio wrapped his arms around himself to stave off the chill.

 

“I know I don’t _have_ to. I _want_ – ”

 

Elio couldn’t help the full body cringe that overcame him. Angrily, he willed back the onslaught of tears. He would _not_ cry right now – not while he was finally putting a foot down, finally in a position to make his own demands, even if it was in the ugly face of dismissal. <Stop all the bullshit.>

 

Oliver’s face displayed only unmistakable bewilderment. “What?”

 

The ruse was over, their cards were on the table. There was no point in hiding from it even a second longer – Elio just had to get Oliver to admit it. Though the truth would hurt, he knew his splintered heart couldn’t withstand another lie. <I know that I disgust you.> He stared hard at the grey tiled floor – anywhere but at the bottomless blue eyes.

 

“You – what?” Oliver gave his head a firm shake as if to clear it. “I don’t think I know that one. ‘Disgust’?” He repeated, trying the sign out on his own hands, and waited for Elio’s nod. “ _What_ disgusts me?”

 

 _Dig the knife in deeper_ , Elio thought. Exasperated, he thumped a hand against his own chest.

 

Oliver blinked at him. “You?” he asked, brows furrowed, and shook his head again. “You what?”

 

Elio rolled his eyes. <Me! My body, my…> His frustration reached a boiling point when words – signs – escaped him. With jerking hands he pointed to his ruined ears, his soundless throat, his stick-thin arms. <Me.>

 

There was a half-beat of an all too familiar nothingness. And then Oliver’s expression fell. “Elio, what…? How could you ever think that?” he asked, reaching out a hand.

 

Elio pulled away from it. <How?> If he had to spell it out like this, to define his torment in an inadequate series of gestures and facial expressions, it might very well be his undoing. But there was no going back now. <You push me away when I touch you. You stop me every time I try to…> He trailed off, because did he even know a sign for that? And what, exactly, was he trying to describe? Because he didn’t only want a reciprocal blowjob, or a quick fuck just to get it ‘out of their system’. He wanted the relationship, the _real_ thing this time. He wanted hand-held walks through _Central Park_ when no one else was around and lunch dates between Oliver’s afternoon classes. To wake up in the morning with that warm, comforting body curled around his and not have to wonder how much longer he’d be welcome there before his allotted time elapsed.

 

He wanted a life together, and one he didn’t have to be constantly afraid would disappear before his eyes the same way that sound had faded from his ears.

 

Shame once again began to burn at his cheeks and sting at his eyes, so he hid behind his hands before Oliver could watch his face crumple.

 

From between the slats of his fingers he saw Oliver edge closer. He only allowed Elio a moment or two of reprieve before he gently pulled at his wrists and took down his last defense. “God, Elio. I’ve made such a mess of everything.”

 

Elio swiped at a tear with his forearm and studied the face in front of him. The few words that he’d heard faintly hum through the endless quiet sounded cracked and broken. There were lines of misery etched deeply into the summer skin that made Oliver look ten years older. Elio fought the urge to reach out and smooth them away with the pad of his thumb, so he stuffed his hands between his thighs.

 

“I know that things haven’t been the same since we got here – that _I_ haven’t been the same,” Oliver began, expression anxious. “But with everything that you’ve had to adjust to, and in such a short amount of time, the last thing I wanted to do was put any kind of additional pressure on you.”

 

Confused, Elio gave a frustrated shake of his head.

 

A deeper fretfulness clouded the handsome face. “Should I repeat…”

 

<No.> Elio vehemently shook his head. <I understood. What do you _mean_? >

 

Oliver heaved a sigh. “I took you across the world and away from your parents. While you were basically at your most vulnerable. That was all my idea.” He said, raking a hand roughly through his hair.

 

Elio squinted at him. <I wouldn’t be able to understand this conversation if you hadn’t…>

 

“No,” Oliver interrupted, startling him, and captured his hands with his own. “Don’t – I don’t need you to validate any of this for me, okay? I’m trying to explain something to you.”

 

The fingers stilling his softly stroked his skin. Elio gulped at the contact, but nodded.

 

Oliver took a deep breath before continuing. “Because I was the one who uprooted your life and convinced you that this was what was best, I just couldn’t…” He trailed off, a lost and pained look in his eyes. “I didn’t want you to ever think that you’d been brought here with me because of my own selfish intentions; that there would ever be the implication that you had to reciprocate – anything. I just wanted you to feel like you were in an environment where you could mend your spirit and learn to find your voice and…well, feel safe.” His gaze caught on Elio’s bruised face and then fell to the floor. “Bang up job I’ve done of that so far.”

 

Mind spinning, Elio replayed Oliver’s words over again in his head on a loop. He wanted to believe it – but at the same time, it was incredibly difficult to swallow. Not because the explanation was too simple or too good to be true – but because it was absurd. He tried to convey this with a look.

 

It came across clear enough. “No – it’s not crazy.” Oliver insisted, reaching out and planting a warm hand on each of Elio’s thighs. “What’s crazy is that you could ever think that anything about you would ever _disgust_ me.” He spat the word like it was the profanest of curses.

 

Elio tried to squirm away – from the hold on his legs, from Oliver’s fierce and arresting scrutiny.

 

But Oliver held firm. “Elio, what you said before you left – how could I _not_ want you like this?” He shook his head, incredulous. “Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter, you’re not – you were never just ‘Elio the Musical Prodigy’ or ‘Elio the Smart-Mouthed Know-It-All’ to me. You’re just Elio, _my_ Elio. Whether you’re as deaf as Beethoven or mute as Boo Radley, that’s not going to change. You could be just brainwaves on a monitor and I’d still want you.”

 

The warm flutter that began to emanate from somewhere in his chest was incredibly distracting. Elio rolled his eyes and stared at the ceiling to hide the flood of tears that threatened to fall anew. Blowing his cheeks out on a dubious huff, when Elio dared to glance back Oliver was gazing at him with a look that could only be described as embarrassingly fond.

 

Oliver gave him the warmest of smiles. “Fortunately, you’re so, _so_ infinitely more than that.” The hands slid a little higher up his legs, pulling him in that much closer. “It’s been physically painful for me to restrain myself all these weeks, I hope you know.”

 

Elio smirked a watery smile.

 

Playfully, Oliver rolled his eyes. “Oh, that’s right. Of course you don’t know.” Slowly, the humor dissolved from his expression and left something quiet and spellbinding in its wake. “Elio, there is nothing about you that isn’t irrevocably beautiful. Especially with what you’ve been through – not in spite of it. I wish now more than ever that there were a way for you to see yourself through my eyes; you’d never need to wonder how I feel. Because from where I’m standing…God, you’re perfect,” he swore.

 

His mind kept trying to tell him that his eyes were playing tricks on him – that he wasn’t sighting the words properly, or that he’d lost the skill to lip-read all together. Elio blinked several times to try and clear his vision, but when he dared to look again Oliver was still crouched in front of him – that same open, earnest look on his face as he stared at Elio like he was the only thing that mattered.

 

And oh, how he wanted it to be real – and Oliver certainly seemed determined for him to believe it. Though it may not have been a lie, why couldn’t Elio shake the feeling that it also wasn’t the whole truth?

 

Suddenly, it all seemed like a bit too much; the strain of the day and the muted pain in his body began to pull at the edges of his consciousness, and Elio felt himself slump forward.

 

“Easy, easy.” Oliver hummed, a hand at his neck easing him closer until Elio’s forehead rested in the perfect nook of Oliver’s clavicle. The rest he couldn’t see, but the words that vibrated from beneath the warm skin at his cheek were calm and soothing.

 

Elio willed his body to resist – summoning the energy to at least remain rigid with indecision – but it was futile. He folded into the warm arms with a weary sigh, and let himself drift on the ebb and flow of Oliver’s inaudible murmur.

 

*

 

The next time Elio awakened fully, the apartment was basked in the shadows of nightfall and he’d somehow ended up in bed.

 

Vaguely, hazy snippets from the evening, like scenes from a damaged reel of film, began to come back to him; he remembered Oliver in the bathroom taping his ribs with the softest of touches. At some point he’d been coaxed to swallow water, painkillers, and a few bites of food. Then, later, the foggy memory of being carried to the bedroom in a pair of firm but gentle arms.

 

Elio turned his head on the pillow and blinked to clear the cobwebs. Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the darkness and he stilled in surprise.

 

The bed beside him was empty, save for a melting ice pack.

 

Rolling carefully on his injured side, Elio looked to the door. It was open, and no light or signs of life came from out in the main room. With a frown, Elio pushed back the blankets and eased into a sitting position, slowly swinging his bare legs down off the mattress – where his foot made contact with a warm, solid lump on the floor.

 

When he looked down, Elio’s chest warmed at the sight.

 

Oliver was lying inches away on a makeshift bed of couch cushions and a tattered old afghan. His mouth was hanging ajar in what was probably a chest-rattling snuffle – _did_ Oliver snore? He couldn’t remember, no matter how hard he wracked his brain. Their nights together since New York were always awkward, distant, and, as with everything, eerily silent.

 

Elio swallowed the lump that appeared in his throat. He still wanted to know these things. He wanted to know if Oliver whistled while he cooked, or hummed in the shower; to come home and hear the apartment at the end of a regular day with Oliver there, waiting for him. Despite everything, his heart ached to know the feeling, the _sounds_ of intimacy with this perfect creature that, against all odds, still claimed to want him around. There were two things currently standing in the way of that ever happening – one, regrettably, he couldn’t control. But the other…

 

Pushing aside a lingering wariness that had begun to run cold, Elio reached down and clasped one of Oliver’s wayward hands that lay near his face. He squeezed it.

 

Oliver’s eyes blinked open with surprising alertness. “What’s wrong?” He asked, already sitting up and scanning Elio in the dusky light. “Are you okay?”

 

<Yes,> Elio signed, nodding. Then, telling himself it was dark, he cleared his throat to speak. “Just come up here.” He pulled on the hand he was still holding onto.

 

There was a moment of hesitation as Oliver’s eyes gleamed longingly in the shadows. Then he pulled himself up and gradually crossed the room to the other side of the bed. He seemed to ease back the covers in slow motion, as if giving Elio the chance to change his mind three times over. Finally, he lowered himself down onto the mattress.

 

Elio waited a beat or two, looking at the rigid line of Oliver’s body that he seemed to be holding perfectly still from across the void of wrinkled white sheets. Then he carefully rolled over and molded himself against the warm contours of the mile-long back beside him.

 

For a moment it seemed that Oliver was holding his breath – or maybe had stopped breathing altogether – but then, finally, his muscles began to uncoil and melt beneath Elio’s touch.

 

A hand came up and clasped Elio’s upper arm in a gentle, stroking grip. Oliver said something then, softly, and Elio felt it emanate through Oliver and into his chest. He didn’t know what words were spoken, but he felt them reverberate within his body as if they’d just left his own lips.

 

In the darkness, Elio smiled softly against the supple skin between Oliver’s wide shoulder blades. Maybe he didn’t know everything – and maybe some things, regrettably, he never would. But for now, it was enough.

 

*

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!! If you enjoyed, please let me know :)

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, so much more to come. We've just dipped our toe in the water. Jump in with me, won't you?
> 
> Kudos and comments are forever appreciated!


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